


the gentleness that comes

by Carthage



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, BDSM, Bottom Credence Barebone, Dom Original Percival Graves, Dom/sub, M/M, Mary Lou Barebone is Her Own Warning, Original Percival Graves is a Softie, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Safe Sane and Consensual, Service Top, Sub Credence Barebone, Surrogacy, Virgin Credence Barebone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2018-11-01 15:27:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10924686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carthage/pseuds/Carthage
Summary: Percival Graves, retired Dom sex surrogate, is drawn back into the world of surrogacy as a favor to Newt Scamander. Newt's patient, one Credence Barebone, is recovering from his sheltered and abusive upbringing - after nearly burning down half the town in his escape. As Percival helps guide Credence through discovering his submissive side, he finds himself falling for the younger man - but those feelings must be hidden, lest he betray everything his profession stands for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We have not touched the stars,  
> nor are we forgiven, which brings us back  
> to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,  
> not from the absence of violence, but despite  
> the abundance of it.  
> \- Richard Siken

“Percival.” Seraphina Picquery’s voice echoes off the tiled walls of Percival Graves’ bathroom, where he is, on the twentieth day of his retirement, enjoying a nice shave.

“Seraphina,” he says back, wiping his straight razor clean. “I hope you’ve called because you’ve missed my glittering personality and charming ways.” He pulls his cheek taut and passes the razor over it, the hair falling in a soft rustle, the heat of his hand shocking against newly bared skin.

“I do miss you, but no, this isn’t a social call. I need a favor.”

Percival glares at his phone, perched on the corner of the sink. It, unhappily, refuses to turn off in spontaneous protest.

“ _Retired,_ Seraphina.”

 "Yes, I know, but this is-“ the shuffle of papers, ”-an unusual case. One that needs a male Dominant.“

Percival wipes the razor clean one last time and closes it, placing it back on its shelf above the toilet. "That’s what you said about the last client, and that one broke me.” He scoops up the phone on his way out of the bathroom and goes to the kitchen, where a new espresso machine with a ludicrous amount of knobs and gears sits, humming happily. 

He has no idea how it works, but now, for once, he has time to figure it out, after years of bad police station coffee. 

A pause on the other end. “I didn’t think Theseus would affect you so badly when I sent you to him.”

Percival ignores the twist in his stomach at the name with long practice, blinds himself to the flash of auburn hair and hollow eyes in his mind’s eye. “Well, it did. Send my replacement.”

” _Damn it, Percival_ -“ and the unexpected profanity in her voice has him scrambling not to drop the bag of coffee beans, ”-there is no replacement!“

"Still?” He’d given three weeks’ notice, after Theseus; it’s been nearly two months now, and it’s not as though the world is hurting for male Dominants. Male Dominants who can be a sex surrogate, though…

“Yes, _still_. You were a rare gem, it seems; I’ve interviewed close to a hundred candidates and I haven’t found a single male Dom who wasn’t inexperienced, entitled, cold, self-centered, indiscreet, or God forbid, all of those at once. And I don’t even want to ask you, but like I said, this one’s challenging, high-profile-”

“How high profile?” Percival sets the milk to steam and turns around to survey his apartment: white, black, gray, silent and still. Retirement might be boring, and it wouldn’t harm anything to devote an hour or two a week to one client-

“You would need to sign a nondisclosure agreement before I could tell you much more, but I can say that the prescription for a surrogate came from Newt, and Newt specifically wants you.”

 _Newt?_ Well, that makes sense, as mortifying as it might be; Newt saw how Percival and Theseus interacted, how Percival cared for Theseus even at his most fragile, and if Newt’s providing therapy to someone in need of surrogacy, it makes sense he’d think of Percival, first. But Newt doesn’t counsel the jet set, the sorts of people who’d require an NDA before even meeting - who _is_ this client?

Damn it, now he’s interested, almost invested, the old cop’s curiosity raising its head once more. 

“If- _if_ I did an initial consult with Newt and the client, would you pay the usual rate? Understanding, of course, that I’m not guaranteeing anything.”

Seraphina, thankfully, is too polite to mention his capitulation. “Of course. I’ll fax over the NDA, and then you and Newt can set up a time to go meet the client.”

Percival takes his latte with him to his office, pushing a case of crops out of the way with his foot. He’d used the one with a rabbit-fur tip on Theseus, towards the end, and the memory twitches his lips into a smile.

“Oh, and Percival?”

“Yeah?” 

“Thank you. If you hadn’t taken it, I would have had to send Abernathy, and that would’ve been a disaster for all concerned.”

“You wouldn’t. The man can barely articulate the difference between a surrogate and a non-medical sex worker, he’d be a nightmare in any client-facing scenario!”

The fax whirs, sounding worryingly like the espresso machine for a moment, and spits out the first sheet of paper, bearing Newt’s signature, Seraphina’s as the proprietor of Picquery Surrogates, a space for Percival’s, and at the bottom, in a trembling, unsure hand, the client’s name:

 _Credence Barebone._  
  
Fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

"Percival!" Newt calls from the window of his battered Mini Cooper, waving, as though Percival doesn't possess ears to hear. Newt's auburn hair is as riotous as ever - unlike Theseus, who had kept his hair military-short until it fell out, and then there was no reason to care.

' _Stop. Stop thinking about that._ '

Percival hefts his briefcase, jogs down the steps, and crams himself into the passenger seat of the Mini, dislodging a stuffed iguana with a nametag proclaiming it 'Pickett.'

"Afternoon, Newt," he starts to say, only for thick drool to land on the shoulder of his gray Henley. Fuck, he quite likes this shirt.

"Afternoon, don't mind Dougal-" Newt steers the Mini, which is putting up an alarming racket, out into traffic and eastbound.

"Newt," Percival says, fishing a wet wipe out of his briefcase and scrubbing at the stain, "you _have_ met Dougal, yes? He's not the sort of creature one 'doesn't mind.'"

The Irish wolfhound in question groans into Percival's ear from the backseat as Percival reaches back to scratch behind his ears, knuckles brushing the stiff red vest proclaiming him a therapy animal.

"Did you see the NDA?" Newt merges at unreasonable speed, one-handed, the other hand occupied with a mug of tea.

"It's intense." Which is a low-key word, all things considered; the NDA had been nearly half an inch thick. "How dangerous is he?"

"Who, Credence? Not at all."

Percival raises an eyebrow. The footage had blared across the country: flames consuming the Second Salem compound in the dead of night; Mary Lou Barebone, in a nightgown from her wrists to her ankles, trying to turn away the fire department; Mary Lou threatening them with God's vengeance and Grindelwald’s, her new spouse, and considering the rumors of his wealth and power, Grindelwald's vengeance may well have been worse; coughing children, malnourished and flinching, stumbling into the floodlights; a small girl, eyes wild and rolling in a soot-stained face, writhing in the firefighters' grips and howling for Credence, Credence, _Credence_.

At last, out of the roiling clouds of smoke, a firefighter, stumbling, her arms cradling thin limbs that stank of gasoline, a slack and blue-tinged face. The firefighter falling. The girl, Modesty Barebone, breaking free, running to shelter in the shadow of Credence's body beneath the flames.

"You're saying this about a man who nearly set the National Forest on fire." Though, to be fair, Percival would probably have done the same, had he grown up among the Second Salemites: rigid, unyielding, utterly joyless and practical in the worst sort of way.

"Yes." Newt takes an off-ramp down into a quiet residential neighborhood, the Mini Cooper jolting when it leaves the ramp. "But there is a great difference between a man who does terrible things to escape and one who does them to harm."

"I'm aware, Newt. My cop training hasn't left me yet." To say nothing of Theseus, who had spent a good three week stretch emotionally savaging everyone around him, trying to escape their attention and affection, trying to spare them the loss.

Newt grins in the corner of Percival's gaze and drains the tea. "Apologies." A stoplight; the Mini Cooper, idling. Newt turns to stare Percival full in the face, and that in itself is so rare as to have Percival's full attention. "Credence had no homicidal intent or thoughts of violence."

"Then why burn it down? My contacts in the department weren't willing to share much." Not that they, technically, are ever supposed to share the details of an ongoing investigation, but this level of secrecy is unusual.

Newt turns, gray-blue gaze sliding away from Percival, and accelerates. "Credence and the children at this Second Salem compound fell through every crack in every system: Department of Children and Families, the police, the schools, the hospitals. DCF’s foster system was overloaded, so someone like Mary Lou, willing to take in as many as they gave, seemed a godsend, and she sailed through the approval process. Add in waivers for medical care due to personal beliefs, waivers for public education due to religious beliefs, the fact that the congregation moved whenever the law became too involved, the fear of crossing Grindelwald-"

Gellert Grindelwald, the city's wealthiest property developer, half the buildings they pass by built by or owned by him. Makes sense, in this small city, not to cross such a man - Percival met him at a gala honoring the police force, and even at that first meeting felt queasy in his presence.

"At various points over the past nineteen years," Newt turns the car towards Kowalski's Bakery, "the children's social workers were called out to do wellness checks. Citizens concerned by how Mary Lou used the kids for canvassing called the police. Credence, himself, at one point after he presented as a sub, called the police. Just like every time the authorities checked on Second Salem, Mary Lou steered the conversation, placated the fears, and got them back off the property. Then she went after Credence with a whip."

God. Nineteen years of waiting for help to come, of dreaming of escape, only to see it slip through your fingers every time. No wonder the young man struggles with trust, if all he's received from authority figures is suffering or ignorance; no wonder he apparently yearns for someone to help him feel safe.

"Was Mary Lou's animosity towards him purely based on his submissive status?"

"No, though it intensified after he presented, and when his sister Modesty presented as a dominant, Credence had to get attention from the authorities before Modesty also came in for abuse." Newt swallows visibly, eyes bleak, and Dougal lays his mournful head on Newt's shoulder. "Or before Modesty was sent off to some other Second Salem congregation to be separated from her brother's 'foul perversions.' Time was short. Help was short. He made the best choice he could, given what he knew."

A choice that landed Credence in jail while they processed the crime scene, the children scattered to various therapeutic foster homes, and now has him waiting to be called up as a witness in the ongoing criminal trials of Grindelwald and Mary Lou.

"So once they released him from jail, that's when you met him?"

Newt parks in front of Kowalski's bakery, unbuckles himself, and fishes in the piles in the backseat for his satchel. "Yeah; seems like poor recompense for nineteen years of suffering due to willful blindness, but DCF is paying for all of his and the other witnesses' treatment and reintegration into society. Tina knows one of the children's new caseworkers, and since Tina likes to talk up her sub-" he ducks his head, grinning, a flush staining his cheeks and traveling down his neck, beneath the thin blue leather collar, "-I wound up a consultant."

It takes a moment for them to all extricate themselves from the backseat, but eventually Percival and Newt and Dougal are all free on the sidewalk before Kowalski's, Newt completely ignorant of the black fur covering nearly every inch of his corduroys.

"Since Credence said he wanted to explore his sexuality, I got in touch with Seraphina, and-" Newt gestures at their surroundings, "-we're here."

"Anything I should know?" Percival follows Newt into the building and up the staircase. Dougal's tail whacking into his knees as they climb.

"Not that you would, but don't treat him like he's stupid or a child; he's quite clever, really, just sheltered. He probably won't offer a handshake, so you're better off waiting to see if he initiates. Other than that, can't think of much for a first meeting."

Newt stops before the door above Kowalski's - a deep green, the paint peeling about the edges - and knocks, three fast raps.

A shadow moves behind the peephole, and Percival squares his shoulders, settling into his skin again, projecting calm confidence. The click of locks, and he looks Credence Barebone full in the face.

He's practiced at hiding his initial reactions to clients - he's had to be, when he's worked with clients who are quadriplegic, dying, all types of bodies and abilities - but even then he has to swallow down the rumble building in his chest.

Credence Barebone is _exquisite_ , there's no other word for it - and Percival is lucky to have him first, to teach him what he needs to know to be safe, because he will have suitors aplenty. Feline eyes, near-liquid in their darkness, that flicker over him and Newt and Dougal, then drop in silent submission, eyelashes the color of soot falling upon knife-sharp cheekbones, their paleness begging for a thumb's caress. The cut of his black hair does him no favors, but given time and patience, those thick strands could be made beautiful. The breadth of his shoulders, tapering down to a narrow waist where one's hand could rest-

"Hello, Newt, Dougal," Credence says, his voice low, hoarse, as if he rarely speaks. "And you-?" His gaze flicks up to Percival, who offers a faint smile.

"Percival Graves, the surrogate partner." He doesn't offer a hand, and Credence makes no attempt. "Pleasure."

"Oh-" it's more an indrawn breath than a word, and Credence seems to hunch into himself, as if to hide, but his gaze looks Percival over from feet to head, the barest hint of a flush stealing across his cheeks. Anxious, no doubt, but not frightened - Percival can work with that.

Credence steps back for the three visitors to enter the apartment. It's Spartan, to say the least, but not surprising; he likely never had much, and what furniture he has must have been provided by DCF or the police department. The couch Credence gestures for them to sit on is an unflattering shade of beige, and Credence perches at the edge of a rickety kitchen chair. He clasps his hands together, a subtle tremor drawing Percival's attention to the faint red of a scar tracing over the side of one palm.

"Shall we go ahead and get started? I've explained some of what Credence can expect from me in our relationship, but I'm sure there's still some questions he might have." Newt unclips Dougal's leash and busies himself removing paperwork from his satchel.

Percival holds Credence's gaze, searching for signs of panic or confusion. "So, you've met Newt. He's the therapist, and I'm the licensed dominant surrogate partner. Together with you, we form what's called the therapeutic triangle; what that means is that we all agree when to move forward in treatment, when to end therapy - unless you decide to end the contract - and how to help you achieve your goals. First and foremost, your safety and confidentiality is paramount; nothing will be shared outside the therapeutic triangle, and nothing occurs without your permission."

A muscle flickers in Credence's jaw, and Dougal pads over to shove his head between Credence's hands, breaking apart the anxious twist of fingers. Another glimpse, then, of terrible scars, hidden quickly in Dougal's dark fur, and Percival's chest aches with pity.

"How long will it take?" Credence's gaze flickers to Newt, who's looking through notes. "For me to meet my goals?" His fingers dig into Dougal's fur, thumbs stroking over the dog's ears.

Newt waves for Percival to keep going, so he does. "It's different for each client, but the standard is that the client meets with the therapist for one or two hours a week and the surrogate for one or two hours a week, separately. Most clients I've worked with have felt able to end the relationship and try dating after about thirty weeks."

"Speaking of which!" Newt flips to a sheet in Credence's file, his spidery handwriting spilling over the page. "Have your goals remained the same? Not feeling afraid of your orientation, being able to communicate needs and boundaries, being able to submit?"

"Yes, please," Credence says, his voice near-trembling, Dougal patient as his fingers twine into his fur.

That soft ' _please_ ,' those eyes flickering shy glances at Percival's hands, his briefcase - this young man will make some dominant proud one day.

They schedule the sessions, and Newt takes over for a bit, discussing Credence's progress with mindfulness practices, meditation: the standard routine for someone beginning surrogate therapy.

"Here's the contract attesting to the boundaries I have." Percival draws it from his briefcase and hands it over along with a pen. "There's my work phone number; if while you're working on an assignment for Newt or myself, you have questions or concerns, you can text me there. You have a phone?"

"Yes," Credence says, his lips almost shaping the 'sir.' Oh, he's a sweet young man, so obviously in need, so easily hurt; thank God for Newt and Tina, who recognized his vulnerability and connected him to people who would not use it against him.

"The rest is standard; you won't see me outside of our scheduled sessions, and once our therapeutic relationship is over, you won't try to seek me out further, as my job is not only to model the beginning and middle of a good relationship, but also its ending."

Credence reads the contract slowly, mouthing the words to himself, a furrow setting in his brow that Percival could smooth away with a thumb, a kiss. He nods as he finishes, then signs at the bottom, passing it back to Percival. Their fingers brush, and Credence swallows, a faint tremor shaking him.

"Now, as this is mostly about introductions and paperwork, our time is almost up." Newt breaks the sudden connection, stuffing papers back into his satchel. "Percival, you have an assignment for him, correct?"

Percival turns and pulls the last things out from his briefcase: two dice and a thin black leather band. He places them on the coffee table, amused and affectionate when Credence's attention goes to the simple cuff, naked need passing across his face.

"This one is simple. At some point before I see you next, I want you to spend half an hour or so with the dice and the cuff. You don't have to put the cuff on if you are uncomfortable; simply have it near you. One die lists sensations, such as scratching, tapping, et cetera. The other lists body parts. I want you to use the dice and explore how you react to the sensations you give yourself: what you enjoy and what you don't. Please write down any strong reactions. Additionally, I want you to write down the thoughts that come into your mind when you look at the cuff or wear it, if you feel ready for that. Understood?"

Credence nods. "All right. Thank you."

"No need," Percival says, standing. They make their goodbyes, Credence again offering no handshake, and he and Newt and Dougal leave the apartment.

Driving away, he looks into the rear view mirror, and spots a pale face in the window above Kowalski's, two dark feline eyes, and in Credence's hands, a thin black leather band.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this chapter: implied violence, shaming, social control, self-esteem issues.

"Don't forget to have pages ten through fifteen done by Wednesday," Mr. Lee says, gathering his papers and calculators back into his backpack. "If you have any questions, you know where to find me, yes?" He smiles, eyes disappearing into the folds of his skin, and hitches his backpack over one shoulder, cane appearing in the other hand.

"Yes, thank you." Credence nods a goodbye to Mr. Lee as he exits Kowalski's Bakery, the bell ringing as the door swings, and then frowns down back at the packet of math worksheets in front of him. He reaches for his cup of coffee, lifts it to his mouth. Drinks only air.

"Need a refill, do you?" Mr. Kowalski - _"Call me Jacob!"_ though Credence has never done so, petrified at the idea of disrespect to someone older than him, and his landlord besides - bustles out from behind the counter with his carafe of black coffee. He waves off Credence's thanks and peers down at his homework. "Mr. Lee has you working hard, doesn't he?"

Credence freezes, pencil near-bending in his grip. Is Mr. Kowalski making fun of him, that he's working on seventh-grade math when he's nearly twenty, that he's here in this corner of the bakery every weekday with various tutors learning basic algebra, basic literature, every aspect of science and history he's missed? Or is Credence reading too much into it, as Newt has cautioned him against?

_"Cognitive distortions happen to all of us, Credence! We have to be aware of our personal menu of distortions, as it were, so we can realize when our thoughts aren't realistic and then train ourselves to think in a more appropriate fashion."_

"I- uh- yes, but it's to help me," he finally stutters out.

Mr. Kowalski smiles at him, exuding warmth, his fingers dusted in flour. He always makes sure to stand in Credence's field of vision, to move slowly, to speak quietly, and Credence doesn't know what to think of his unassuming friendliness. Does he know everything, did they tell him all his history before he let Credence move in? Is it pity for the poor young man ripped from a- a cult?

"Hm." With that mystifying pronouncement, Mr. Kowalski returns behind the counter. The cash register clicks, the sounds of him making sales fading as Credence pushes through the first problem set.

Credence rests his pencil against his mouth, frowns at the problem. "X plus seventeen equals twenty-three." And X can be anything, and that's what he finds most disturbing about this world: the emptiness, the lack of boundaries. Okay. Do the opposite operation on both sides, but it's uneven numbers, and he doesn't want to count on his fingers in public like a child-

"Here," Mr. Kowalski says, and Credence looks up in time to see him slide into the seat Mr. Lee vacated, a plate of dark bread slices and a little tub of butter in one hand. "Just baked it, it's a different kind of flour from my usual. Gluten-free seems to be popular these days."

Credence blinks at him. "Um. How much?" No one gives something for nothing, that he learned in his mother's kitchen. Food was bought with work, for the Second Salemites didn't believe in money - it was of the World, and therefore sinful. Even now his fingers itch at the cold kiss of coins.

"On the house."

 _What?_ Credence looks around at the quiet cafe, only a few patrons eating their lunches or sipping coffee and tea. None of them seem surprised by the idea of food for nothing.

"Seriously," Mr. Kowalski says, the twitch of his mouth shading towards discomfort. "All I ask is that you tell me if it's terrible."

"I don't think anything you make could be terrible," Credence says - the man can make black coffee delicious, not the charred ashen mouthful of his mother's kitchen - and Mr. Kowalski beams, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Ah, you'd be wrong. The guys in my unit, they used to fear my cooking until I learned the math to adapt recipes for an odd number of soldiers."

Credence pauses with his slice of buttered bread halfway to his mouth.” Soldiers?” But Mr. Kowalski seems so friendly, not the sort to take up arms -

"Yeah, I was in the Army." Mr. Kowalski waves at the display of medals above the counter. "Did three tours of duty."

The bread is denser than what Credence has eaten before, but it's nutty, warm, and filling. "It's delicious," he says - Mr. Kowalski grins in unabashed delight - "-you were a cook? In the army?"

"An army marches on its stomach, as they say."

Credence isn't sure who 'they' are, but Mr. Kowalski seems certain of their opinion. "Thank you for the bread."

"Nonsense, thank you for entertaining me now that the lunch rush is over."

Mr. Kowalski seems to mean it, is the thing; that Credence's company, Credence's conversation, is worth his time, and that makes no sense whatsoever.

Wait. Black and white thinking. Cognitive distortion.

Credence manages a smile. "Well. If you've- if you aren't too busy, could you help me figure out this problem?"

Mr. Kowalski looks, if possible, even more delighted to be asked.

-

Credence closes and locks the door to his apartment, places his secondhand backpack on the hook by the door, and then turns around to see the dice and the cuff sitting in the middle of the coffee table. Oh, right. He has his first appointment tomorrow at Picquery Surrogates after his visit with Modesty at her foster home, has carefully mapped out the bus route and counted out the coins necessary for the fare there and back, palms itching at the sin of touching something of the World.

He needs to do the assignment, but first he needs to get the grease off his hands; he wound up helping Mr. Kowalski close up shop, had been given a sandwich of thick bacon, firm tomatoes bursting with juice, lettuce that crunched between the teeth, all slathered in homemade mayonnaise. He’d not known a sandwich could taste so good.

Hands clean, he goes to the bedroom – his own space, his own _bed_ , and the fact is still a thrill – to pull his pajamas from the dresser and go about readying for bed. The trousers DCFS gave him don’t slip easily over his hips with only a tug anymore, a thin layer of fat and muscle softening the harsh edge of his bones. He is growing, taking up more space – a part of him quails at the idea, bigger means more easily heard, means more easily seen, means more easily hurt – but if nothing else, his case manager will be happy. Shirts off and on before he goes into the bathroom – he does not want to see his back, that fading but never gone patch of tortured flesh from where he lay unconscious in the burning barn.

Then the medicines, making up for all the doctor’s visits the Second Salemites never had. Several puffs of an inhaler to treat the lingering effects of smoke inhalation and a handful of various vitamins, and then, yes, all right, he’s run out of reasons to delay facing the dice and the cuff any longer.

Credence takes them into bed with him, sitting on top of the covers, a notepad and chewed-on pencil at one side. His hands shake, and for a moment a wild impulse races through him to text the surrogate, Mr. Graves, that he can’t do this, can’t _be_ this perversion, this flaw, this man going against everything a man should be, giving up all authority and power and office bestowed upon him by God.

Mr. Graves. The man might think him a fool for being so quiet, not meeting his eyes, but Credence had been trying, as best he could, to not freeze at the sight of him filling the doorway. He’d seemed the sort of man ripped from those magazines Ma had told them to avert their eyes from when they walked past convenience stores, the sort of man Credence had tried not to think of and failed, had woken up hard to feverish dreams and suffered for that sin.

Eyes dark as the charred wood left by a flame’s passing, a quiet authority in the way they’d looked him over from head to toe, and something kind in the crows-feet about their corners, a life well-lived, more used to smiles than frowns. Dark hair, swept straight back in a severe haircut, silvered at the temples, and a lean face, mouth set in a half-smile. Muscled shoulders that filled out his gray shirt, and in the unbuttoned top of the shirt a glimpse of black and silver hair. And those _hands_ – thick-knuckled, traced with veins, his palms broad, his fingers long; Credence had looked at them and burned, imagined how they might cup his chin, those rough thumbs trace his lips, how he might encompass all of Credence’s most vulnerable parts in his curled hand, fondle him, protect him.

There had been an implacable expectation in the weight of his gaze, solidity that said he would be firm but not cruel, kind but not yielding. Something deep in the pit of Credence’s damned soul had stirred, taken notice, desired nothing more than to offer itself in the hopes of earning praise in that deep voice, faintly accented, a faded backdrop of misty shores and green fields.

Well. If he wants to earn praise, he knows what he has to do. Palms burning at the thought of God watching him, he rolls the dice.

Fifteen minutes later, he has a table drawn out and filled in on the notepad. His feet aren’t sensitive to tapping, callused with years of work and too-small shoes; it is impossible to tickle oneself, even on the ribs; pinching his – he’d swallowed before writing the word – nipples had made his stomach twist with the first embers of need; stroking his lips had made them tingle for want of something in his mouth; drumming his fingers on his throat was just pointless; he could not make himself touch his back to figure out a response.

Then, at last, the cuff.   

It's a simple thing, not really even a cuff - more a thin leather strand - and there's a part of Credence that wants it around his wrist, that feels the absence as nakedness.

The rest of him quails. He can't want that sense of belonging, the leather or cloth or metal settled about wrists or neck. It's not for men, not for _him_ , it's a sin to desire yielding, to want passivity. All he'll get is hurt, get pushed, get trapped into things he can't do-

 _His hands, palm-up, trembling and bared for the lash, blood droplets spattered across the onionskin pages of the Song of Songs, the words he had shivered to read, had imagined a man saying to him even then,_ arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me, the winter is past -

_Naomi's knees, bruised near-black, and the proud toss of her head even as her husband's hand cracked across her cheek-_

The cuffs and dice clatter across the floor as he yanks the covers up over himself to hide from the yawning terror opening beneath him. There is a howl caught in his throat, an awful clot of rage and tears that licks sour at the back of his teeth, blasphemy caught behind his lips. He can't catch his breath past the lump in his throat, he's near-dying, his blood a torrent in his ears-

Sleep comes hard.

-

Picquery Surrogates is a small white bungalow with blue trim on a tree-lined street, the sort Credence would have avoided proselytizing on for fear of the police. Even now he doesn't fit in his secondhand clothes, the worn backpack digging indentations into his shoulders. It would've been easier if Mr. Graves could've come to the apartment above Kowalski's, but Newt had explained that Mr. Graves only did house calls for clients who were too frail to travel.

Credence, for all that he feels like a balloon stretched thin over enough sorrow to choke on, isn't that sort of frail.

"Yes?" the terrifyingly beautiful woman at the desk says, rising to greet him as he shuffles into the waiting room. He probably looks a fright against these plush navy chairs, the fountain burbling in the corner, the lovely blue and gold paper hat atop her head and the gold nameplate on the desk-

"I'm here for Mr. Graves, ma'am."

"Ah. You must be Mr. Barebone, then," Picquery says.

He nods. Kind of her to pretend she doesn't know him, when the whole day has brimmed with whispers behind his back on the bus, gazes darting away when he turns. Kind to act as though he is normal.

If only he could be small, unnoticed, a sailboat on the sea at night, drifting.

"Come with me."

He follows Picquery down a narrow hallway, her heels clicking on the pale wood floors, and into a bedroom.

"Mr. Graves will be in in just a moment. Please make yourself comfortable," she says, and disappears.

A hysterical laugh bubbles in his throat, is choked back. _Comfortable?_ He's never been comfortable in his life, not once; the closest was in the hospital, drugged, asleep, secure that he had done it, he had saved the children. Then he'd woken up, and nothing was good or comfortable anymore.

Okay. Cognitive distortions. Unproductive thoughts. Newt would want him to be mindful, center himself in the present.

The room's like something out of an interior decorating magazine; pale gray walls, a few black and white prints of stony beaches and dark cliffs arranged above the sofa, a bed - _no, don't think about the bed_ \- a bathroom to one side, a small refrigerator with an electric kettle placed atop it, a closed trunk at the foot of the bed. Afternoon light drips like honey through the frosted glass window and pools across the white bedspread.

The sofa accepts him perching on its edge, its cushions dimpling beneath his weight. He roots through his backpack for the cuff, his notepad, the dice, peering upward after he finds them and puts them aside.

The ceiling has some exposed beams, painted black – _a sickening plunge in his stomach_ \- and an upside-down dome, black plastic - a camera? But that makes sense, probably serves to protect the surrogate partner from any accusations of untoward behavior-

Credence jumps at the click of the door, fingernails digging into his knees. His throat is parched.

Mr. Graves fills the room with his presence without saying a word, the intensity of his dark gaze almost a physical touch on Credence's skin. A half-smile tugs at his mouth, curls his lips.

"Good afternoon, Credence."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Graves."

"Percival, please," Mr. Graves - Percival - says as he enters the room. Today he's entirely formal, the understated richness of his clothes - dark slim trousers, a pinstriped shirt with buttons of real silver, a dark waistcoat - bespeaking power. At his collar, a complicated knot in his tie, and that's almost a disappointment, not being able to see the hint of masculine hair, the golden hollow of his throat. A woody scent suffuses the air - cologne, maybe? The Second Salemites had not held with such things. "Tea?"

Credence blinks. Is it offensive to say no, or should he try to not seem greedy by saying yes, or- _calm down._

"Um. Yes, please?"

"So polite," Percival says to himself, and Credence isn't sure if he wants a response, chooses to sit in agonized indecision on the couch, fingers digging into his knees. Percival flicks on the electric kettle and pulls out a carafe of milk from the fridge. In moments the kettle clicks off, steam hissing from it, and Percival assembles two chipped and friendly-seeming mugs of tea.

"Thank you," Credence murmurs, reaching out for his, surprised despite himself when Percival's dark eyes don't search out his scarred palms in the process of passing the mug. He's gotten so used to people's stares.

"You're welcome," Percival returns, sitting back in the overstuffed armchair across from Credence. Steam curls about his pale face, dark eyes, his blunt fingers curled about the bone-white of the mug. "Now, let's start with something simple. I've done a bit of research on Second Salemite theology regarding dynamics, but I'll admit to not understanding much of it. Can you explain it in brief?"

"That's not surprising," Credence says, staring down into his pale brown tea. This, at least, is an easy topic; he's had to explain Ma's beliefs time and time again since the fire. Since the weight of those beliefs grew too crushing. "The founder of the movement, back in the Great Enlightenment, didn't like writing in the vernacular. He liked having everyone depend on him and his chosen to understand how to escape damnation. Part of his conservatism."

"Which, I assume, extended to male subs and female dominants."

Credence dares a glance at Percival, who only regards him with no judgment in his face. "Yes. According to our - their - theology, there are no such things. Anyone who thought they were - were _that_ \- is confused. They." He takes another sip of tea, the slosh of it against the rim of the mug barely drowning out the remembered sobs. "They have to be corrected. Convinced of-" his hands ache, "-the proper way."

A flicker in the muscle of Percival's jaw. A slow-boiling growl beneath his words as he says, "And how do they do that?"

The same tired recitation, the same grim litany of pain. "A lot of times they move them to another compound. Cut them off from family and friends. Make the male subs marry female subs, shame him or beat him in public if he doesn't behave as a dominant should." Guilt crawls hot up his spine. "Make the female dominants marry male dominants who-" _Naomi as he last saw her, hanging limp from David's hands,_ "-like a challenge."

He glances up. Darkness clouds Percival's gaze. He knows what Credence isn't saying.

"At the police station, when they interviewed me. They kept asking why more of us didn't leave."

Percival closes his eyes, jaw clenched. He mutters something awful, the curse filling the room.

"I don't- I don't think they meant it to hurt me, but I don't know _what_ they thought." Remembered rage and bewildered hurt squirm in his chest. "Only male dominants are given access to the vehicles, know how to drive. Only Ma and Mr. Grindelwald have access to the bank accounts, and if you wanted money you had to ask - I don't know how they thought any of us were supposed to leave, the compound is miles outside of town, half of us couldn't read, most of us didn't have identification, the children's caseworkers were worse than useless-"

He shuts up with an effort. Percival probably knows all of this, has seen the newspapers, the medical files Newt got from the hospital that treated Credence and the children, their caseworkers. Finishes, leaden, "That was why we didn't leave. Why so many of us, the wrong ones, had to stay."

A long pause.

The two of them, breathing, and then Percival breaks the silence.

"Remind me of your goals. What do you want?"

He already knows them, has gotten all the details from Newt, but Credence wants to please him already, wants another small smile, a kind word in that burred voice. Still. The idea of voicing a want-

 _'God has provided you food and shelter, Credence. Wanting more is wicked. Greed is a sin.'_           

He swallows. Tightens his fingers about the near-empty mug. His heart roars in his ears, and he can't quite meet Percival's eyes.

Patience in the way Percival lounges back in the armchair, expression calm. Solidity and strength in the silent expectation of Credence's reply, a strength that seems he could hold the world from the door if he wanted to. Not a hint of anger in the slow lift of mug to lips.

"I want." Credence starts. Falls silent. His skin prickles with cold sweat. Has to shut his eyes and grind out the words between his teeth, working out salvation with fear and trembling. "I want to not be afraid of- of myself. To say what I need, what- what I don't want. To." The last word splinters. His breath shudders.             

"Take a sip," Percival's low voice slips past the pounding of his heart.

He obeys, the warmth of the tea burning away some of the cold. Keeps his eyes closed.

"Take a breath."

He obeys. The strange spice of Percival's cologne fills his senses. Light filters red through his closed lids. Is it a premonition of what awaits his soul if he speaks?

"What do you want?"

The floor bears up beneath his feet. The tea warms his scarred hands. Percival shifts in the chair across from him, leather creaking. Centuries of dogma press upon his shoulders and disappear in the warm quiet of the room.

"I want to submit," he breathes into the silence, his voice more a sob than speech, his eyes stinging - but he won't cry, he will never cry, be less of a man than he is - and if damnation falls upon him he can't feel it.

The click of a mug being set aside, the creak of leather. Air shifts against the backs of his hands. Is Percival standing, sinewy arm uplifted, a switch in his hand-

"Open your eyes."

He does, and finds Percival seated, his tea to one side, his elbows on his knees. A feeling Credence has no name for glitters in Percival's eyes, dark and deep enough to drown him, and something pained and proud tugs at the corners of his mouth.

"Thank you, Credence."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have time or inclination to drop comments or criticism, I'd welcome them! The second half of the first session will be posted as soon as possible.
> 
> My Tumblr, as always, is 'themonstersoflove.tumblr.com' if any of y'all want to follow me there.


	4. Chapter 4

Credence swallows, eyes wide, as if no one has thanked him for anything in his life. 

"I- for what?"

"It takes a lot of courage, what you just did." The strain had been visible in every inch of his underfed frame, in his shoulders bowing inward, the cords of his neck prominent, the clench of his jaw. Sisyphus, straining against a boulder weighed down with centuries of hatred.

Credence blinks, but his confusion is mixed with a softening, an opening of his body, shoulders falling back into natural position, eyes crinkling at the corners in something almost a smile. He’ll no doubt respond beautifully to praise in-scene.

"But all I did was talk."

Percival nods, then straightens, squares his shoulders to project control. "At the surface level, yes, you spoke. But beyond that, you verbalized your wants and needs, and you showed enough trust in me to believe that you wouldn't be mocked for it." Trust is still a struggle, though; he hadn't missed the way Credence had cringed backwards as he said his last desire, sucking in a breath to hold in case Percival decided to-

Well. He's seen the photographs from the file Newt sent over. Spread palms and slim back obliterated in raised scar tissue, welted skin, a few broken and bleeding. A nasty burn stretched across his lower back, weeping, a remnant of the fires. Surprisingly few marks anywhere else, but then Mary Lou had known where to hit in order to hurt: thin skin, near to bone, packed with nerve endings.

"The fact that you acknowledged that you can have wants and needs as a submissive is an important step," he continues. "I've worked with many subs who've been socialized to think that submission means no wants, needs, or thoughts of their own, and that's dangerous. It's frightening, as a dom, to talk to someone who says they have no boundaries and will do whatever you want. If they can't be honest about what they do or don't want, how can you trust them to be honest when they're at their limit?"

"But-" Credence hunches inward, a shadow stealing across his face, "-what if the dom - if your partner doesn't listen?"

"Then they're not a dominant or submissive, they're an abuser, and they deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible." Percival sits back, releasing the pressure in the room, and picks up his cup of tea. He'd seen no small number of cases as a cop involving ignored limits. "Did that happen to you?"

"Not to me." Credence mirrors Percival's actions, and that's a good sign, that he follows Percival already. "To others. Others I knew.” A pause, as if casting for a line away from those memories. “You said 'dominants or submissives,' so does that mean that submissives can-?" He trails off, those dark eyes meeting Percival's in mute plea.

"Abuse? Yes. It's an unfortunate stereotype that only dominants can abuse. Subs might beat the dominant for not giving them what they want, gaslight them, the whole nine yards; sexuality has nothing to do with whether one can abuse. That whole rot goes along with the idea of the power dynamic only going one way."

Credence's brow furrows again, and Percival wishes all over that he could go back to the nineteenth century and smother the first Second Salemites in their beds. How many men and women have suffered as Credence has suffered, lived their whole lives believing that dominants are ravening beasts and submissives helpless prey?

"Here, I'll show you what I mean, if you're all right with it. I'm going to sit right here. I’m not going to move. I'd like you to stand up."

Credence unfolds from the couch, but he still slouches, tries to appear less a threat. Whatever dominant he ends up with will have to praise him, build him up, until he dares to take up space, to demand his existence. Hopefully Percival will see him that way one day.

"Good," he says, and Credence shivers, eyelids drifting shut. Oh. To be _that_ sensitive to praise - Percival shifts in his seat, has to suppress the image of Credence gazing up from his feet, waiting for kindness to fall upon him, those dark liquid eyes content, that pale face secure in complete devotion. "You see, I asked you to do something, and you chose to listen, giving me power. Now." He deepens his voice, straightens his spine. "Take that tea cup and throw it at the wall."

Credence twitches towards the cup, then stares at Percival with such appalled bafflement that Percival has to struggle to keep his face straight.

"You heard me."

Credence bends to pick up the cup, slow as molasses. He frowns at it, then at Percival.

“Are you sure? It's a perfectly nice cup.” He cradles it in long-fingered hands as if personally offended on its behalf.

Percival grins. “Did you choose to obey me that time?”

“No.”

“There you go, then. Power has to flow both ways. I exert power by ordering you to do something, you decide whether or not to give me that power by obeying, trusting that I won't react poorly if you choose not to. Submission - true, meaningful submission - can’t be coerced or taken. It has to be given, and built on a foundation of trust.”

Credence sits back down, placing the cup on the coffee table, and cocks his head at Percival. It’s sad, and yet unsurprising, that everything Percival speaks of seems to be a revelation.

“For example, I trusted you to question an order you honestly didn't understand - in fact, I hoped you would, as I'm running out of tea cups. You trusted me to not react negatively to your question, and so chose to disobey in order to get clarification. This whole relationship, and all your romantic relationships, have to have a solid foundation of trust and honesty.”

“But how do I know if I can trust someone?” That’s always the painful question, a keen blade between the ribs. The people Credence has been told to trust - his mother, his neighbors, the police and the social workers - have all been unworthy of it, and yet he’s still here, trying. An amazing amount of courage is in that worn-thin body, and even if Credence can’t acknowledge it, Percival will.

“There's no surefire way. But these are the things I tell my clients to look out for. Does your partner ask for your safeword - unprompted - and offer their own? Do they ask for your limits and needs for the scene and tell you their own? Do they ask if you have a safety check set up before going anywhere with you, and if you don't, do they insist you have one?”

“No one did that at home,” Credence says, his voice a bare whisper in the hush. “I don’t think anyone ever talked about trust or limits. It was just-”

“Expected of you,” Percival finishes for him, and Credence’s nod is slow, small, and sad enough to break the heart. The weight of expectations can do as much harm as a lash. 

An expectant silence falls between them. Percival finishes the dregs of his tea and checks the clock, then meets Credence’s eyes.

“I've gone on about trust a lot today. Are you willing to try one last exercise with me?”

Wariness steals across Credence’s pale face, the instinctive withdrawal of a man who’s known little good from either invitations or resistance.

“What is it?”

“Good,” Percival says, “thank you for valuing yourself enough to ask-” and Credence blinks again, off-kilter, as Percival opens the minifridge to reveal a small bowl of grapes.

“Handfeeding is a good way to build trust. Even though you are capable of feeding yourself, you choose to give me that power. You trust me to control one of your basic needs, to not feed you something that will harm you, and to do so at a reasonable pace. You trust me not to use your vulnerability against you. You don’t have to kneel, though I have a cushion for you if you choose.” He nods down at the worn knitted cushion next to his feet, and Credence, when he follows Percival’s gaze, swallows, a lovely pink flush stealing across the pale column of his throat. How far down could that blush go?

Credence’s fingers twist in his threadbare trousers. “I-” he starts, and halts, and then begins again in a rush, “You won’t make me choke? David and Paul used to, when they were angry at Naomi and Sarah - they’d feed them too much, too fast, and one time Sarah got sick on the floor and-” his eyes are twin pits of frantic darkness, his voice breathy and dwindling, and how much of love has been tainted for him, the food he eats, the air he breathes?

“Take a breath,” Percival interrupts, and Credence sucks in air, the sound tinged by a rattle. Smoke inhalation, right. “Do the five-count breathing exercise Newt taught you with your eyes closed. Open them when you feel ready.”

Percival waits, attuned to the fine tremble in Credence’s shoulders, until Credence’s clenched hands relax, knuckles filling pink once more. Those fathomless eyes open, flick to his face, a terrible expectation in his stillness.

“I’m sorry,” Credence whispers. The words scald. 

Every muscle in Percival’s body goes taut, his old wounds from war and the beat flaming to life as scar tissue pulls. That he would apologize, would even feel the need, would think that Percival expects it-

But those are Credence’s wounds in vivid display, all the twisted words the Second Salemites dripped in his ears, raised him to believe, and so Percival lets the anger flow through him, into the floor, out. Anger solves nothing. He has been entrusted with Credence, and anger cannot change Credence’s past.

“Credence,” he feels old beyond measure at the minute flinch, “there is no need for apologies. You’ve done nothing wrong. If I ever think you’ve done something worthy of apologizing for, I will let you know. As for making you choke - first, no, never; second, if we haven’t established the level of trust necessary for you to try this comfortably, then we won’t do it. I would be heartbroken if you tried something you weren't ready for, something that makes you terrified, purely because you thought I wanted it.”

“I want-” Credence manages, “I want to try, but I don’t understand: what do you get out of it? I just sit there and you feed me?” Even now, wanting to please, to make sure his partner ‘gets something’ out of the relationship beyond the sheer pleasure of his company. Percival knows, now, in sickening detail, what sorts of things he would have seen at the Second Salem compound.

Still, best to explain before Credence takes his silence for a reprimand. “I get a lot out of handfeeding, Credence. On a purely aesthetic level, I get to admire a beautiful submissive holding a position I find appealing, the arch of their spine, for example, maybe the way the light falls across their shoulders. It can be photographic, in a way. It's a sensual indulgence as well: their lips brushing my fingers, the warmth of their breath, their weight against my leg. If I'm lucky, their tongue against my fingertips. To say nothing of the ways it can develop from there.” He smiles at the hectic bloom of color in Credence's cheeks, the subtle sway of that lean frame towards him. “Emotionally, I get to know that I've earned a sub’s belief enough that they've chosen to kneel at my feet and trust me to fulfill their needs.”

“You make it sound beautiful,” Credence whispers.

"It should be.” Percival pauses, then continues, half-reluctantly, “You said you wanted to try, and I trust that you’re speaking honestly when you say that. That you want to try for you, and not purely to please me. If, at any point while we’re trying this, I do something that you’re uncomfortable with, say ‘yellow’ and we’ll take a break. If you decide it’s too much and you need to stop, you can either say ‘red’ or get up and move back to the couch. What are your words?"

“Yellow for a break, red for stop.” Credence answers readily, no hesitation beyond a momentary flicker of fear, as if wondering at his own capacity to kneel.

“All right. Take off your shoes. Bring me the cuff and your notepad, please.”

Credence’s eyes flick from Percival’s face to the grapes to the cushion, then back to Percival, then to the cushion again. He toes off his worn tennis shoes with jerky motions. The cut-glass line of his jaw firms as he stands, hands full with cuff and notepad, courage driving him to round the coffee table and fold, clumsy and coltish, down on his knees, facing Percival. Then his eyes widen, body shifting back on his heels as the momentary spasm of bravery deserts him. That delicate pink flush begins to darken into the brick red of humiliation, and that just won’t do.

“Stay, please,” Percival murmurs, lifting a hand to reach for Credence. “Hand me your things." He sets them aside with the bowl of grapes. "How are your knees? No pain?”

Credence licks his lips, dares to lift his gaze to Percival’s. “They’re all right.”

“Good. If you sit with your legs so tense for much longer, they’ll fall asleep, so widen your knees a few inches.” He rests a hand on Credence’s shoulder, bone palpable even through cloth and skin, and looks over his form. A bit of feeding, some time in the sun, a smile gracing that face, and anyone would be proud to call him theirs. 

Credence jumps as Percival’s hand moves inward on his shoulder, a shiver like a nervous animal’s, skin coming alive beneath work-roughened fingers, and then seems to settle beneath Percival’s calm and steady grip.

“Sit back. Rest on the soles of your feet. Lovely.” The pained gleam of humiliation leaves Credence’s eyes as he concentrates on Percival’s instructions, muscle shifting and unknotting beneath the weight of Percival’s hand. “Now.”

Percival dares to slide his hand along the column of that slim neck, pale and arched as a swan's, and draws it about that knife-sharp jaw, bare hints of stubble playing at his fingertips. Ends with his fingers curled about the point of Credence's chin, thumb finding its home in the divot of his chin, just below those glistening lips.

Credence, frozen at the motion of Percival's hand, eyes wide and unblinking as if he feared to miss a moment, loosens. The weight of his head falls into the cup of Percival's palm, dark lashes closing. His pulse, rabbit-fast in the pale blue veins of his throat, slows. Breath flickers against the inside of Percival's wrist, and he is enraptured. Caught, irrevocably, in the slow surrender of Credence turning his face into Percival's hand, trusting him.

He uses that careful - _so_ damn careful, because he knows he's handling something delicate and priceless- grip to draw Credence's spine straight, lift his chin. Softens his voice. "Keep your back straight, shoulders back. Head up. You are giving me yourself, and you deserve to be proud of that gift, to know that you are worth taking pride in." 

Credence's throat bobs. He opens his eyes to stare into Percival's face, awestruck as if by divine revelation. Then the old fears, his eyes dropping, and Percival presses his thumb a bit more against his chin.

"Eyes on me."

Credence says, "But shouldn't I be deferential?" His words hum against Percival's fingertips, and - he's surprised to even think it- he could kiss those words out of his mouth, draw such lovelier words forth with only a bit more time.

"The issue of eye contact differs depending on the dominant. Some more traditionalist types prefer the sub only make eye contact when requested, seeing it as a form of respect for their status. I, on the other hand, consider my sub an equal partner who serves a different role than I do." Percival lets go of Credence's chin and sits back in his chair. "As an equal partner, I never want my sub to feel like they can't look me in the eye, or that they're not worthy of doing so. If my sub wants that level of high protocol, that's an option we can discuss, but here and now, I want your eyes on mine. Understood?"

Credence's eyes glitter, the hint of a smile playing about his lips. "Yes."

Percival draws back and turns to tear a grape off the stem. Cold nips his fingertips as he turns back to Credence, offering the grape.

Credence glances up at him. His eyes are full dark, no light in them, his cheeks stained pink, and Percival wants, in a sudden twist of need, to brush his thumb over that knife-sharp cheekbone. 

Credence's fingers curl into his trousers again, but then that resolve returns and he leans forward. Warm breath stirs the mingled silver and black hairs on Percival's forearm. Credence takes a breath, squares his shoulders, and nips the grape from the flat of Percival's hand with such delicacy Percival hardly feels it. He chews, swallows, brows lifting.

"How was that?" Percival's voice drops into a low, lazy register, all his attention on the dark tinge of purple juice in the center of Credence's lower lip. It practically cries out for a thumb to rub it off, or a coaxing mouth to suck it clean.

"It was so sweet," Credence says, mouth curling into a shy smile. "I've never had one like that before."

"Another?"

"Yes, please."

Percival pulls another grape free, but pauses, seeing Credence's hands tighten again. "Try folding your arms behind your back and wrapping your hands around the opposite bicep." If nothing else, he can at least try to spare Credence's pants the stretching of nervous fingers.

"Like this?" Credence obeys with flattering haste. The pose thrusts his chest out, worn gray cotton molding to the contours of his spare body. 

"Very good. How are your shoulders?" 

Credence shifts, rolling his shoulders, and Percival immediately damns himself for asking because the motion makes the collar of the too-big shirt sag, and, yes, the flush does seem to go all the way down.

"They're fine. I don't know if I could do this forever, though."

"I certainly wouldn't ask you to. I'm going to check your assignment, now - there will still be grapes, don't worry," Percival adds to forestall the flicker of disappointment on Credence's face. 

They settle into a quiet rhythm of Credence plucking grapes from Percival's fingers while Percival scans the table Credence wrote out in his shaky handwriting. Nothing terribly unexpected (the nipple sensitivity is a lovely surprise, if Credence is amenable to that sort of play) though-

"Credence?"

"Hmm?" Credence murmurs, blinking slow, seeming to rouse himself from the outer edges of a drop. The warmth of his cheek is very near to Percival's knee. He could rest there, if he liked, trust Percival to hold him steady. "I- yes?"

"The response column for your back is blank." He makes sure to leave pronouns out of it; Credence, like many subs he's worked with, would probably internalize a 'you' statement negatively at this point.

"Oh." Credence starts to hunch downward into himself, but Percival slips his fingers around his chin and holds him still. Credence's eyes fly to Percival's face, and Percival holds his gaze, speaks softly, firmly.

"Remember. Back straight, eyes on me." 

Credence snaps into proper position near-instantly, but Percival can't be sure whether he does it out of the desire to please or the fear of what might happen if he doesn't correct himself. 

"I'm sorry," Credence blurts against Percival's wrist, his eyes enormous and dark and searching.

"No need for apologies. This is new for you, and you responded to my correction. In fact - I'd like to make that a rule. If you ever do something worthy of an apology, please trust in me that I will let you know. Otherwise, I don't want to hear you apologize. Do you agree?"

Credence's swallow ripples against Percival's fingertips. He nods, and Percival drops his hand from his chin and sits back in his chair.

"Good. Thank you. Now, the table - what happened that left the column for your back blank?"

Credence draws in a sharp breath. His complexion, never robust, manages to pale even further. "You - you have my medical records, don't you?"

"I have what the hospital gave to Newt and myself, yes." 

"Well, then, didn't you - didn't you see?" Credence gestures with his chin at his own back, his voice a thin thread of sound. 

"I saw the investigative photographs, yes-" good Christ, he had seen them, had stared down the vicious silver and pink scars and the charred and blistered flesh, had swallowed down a pity so close to rage it made no difference, "-but Credence, a photograph doesn't tell me about your thoughts. It doesn't tell me if you can't touch back there because it's too painful, or if you have negative feelings associated with it, or if there's no sensation at all. In order for me to help you, I need to know your feelings and thoughts about your body. Or, if it's still a subject you can't talk about, you have your safewords."

Credence subsides, chews on his lip. Shifts on the cushion. 

Percival has never minded silence, but he's found that many of his clients can be drawn into speaking just to escape the silence they perceive as awkward. At last, Credence speaks, staring somewhere in the general vicinity of Percival's head - he'll let that pass for now, when the young man is having to eke out the words between his teeth.

"After I set the fire, I went to the barn. We had livestock stabled there, mostly cows, for milk and meat, and they didn't deserve harm. I was letting them out, but the- the fire moved faster than I thought, and the hay in the loft caught on fire. I let the last cow and her calf out, and I was moving towards the exit, and-" he sighs, "-the beams above me gave way. One hit me in the lower back, slammed me to the ground. I started crawling for the exit, passed out, and woke up in the hospital." He laughs, and in it there's the birth of a sob. "Turned out that us making all our own clothes out of natural fibers like the Bible says helped save my life - the cloth didn't melt to my skin, it just burned, and let the fire through." 

Credence licks his lips, tension settling in his shoulders. "Then, at the hospital, they had me in the burn ward. They had to do this treatment called debridement, if you know what that is."

Percival winces. "Yeah. I know it." He'd seen it done back in his army days, had never forgotten the moans of soldiers having the dead tissue scrubbed off. Some had even managed to make noise past their ventilators.

"They gave me drugs so I wouldn't remember it, but it's like my body still remembers the pain, and I don't - I don't like people touching my back anymore."

"Do you have feeling in the scar?"

Credence frowns, brow furrowed in thought. "Some. Not all of it is back. The surgeon said it would take a long time to know how much would return."

"All right. Do you want to make it a rule that I will not, under any circumstances, touch your back?"

That garners a full-body twitch and an amazed expression. Of course. Fucking Salemites.

"You get to have rules, too," Percival adds gently.

"Then yes, please."

"Done."

Credence grins, and the brilliance of it is earthshattering, a thousand suns emerging from clouds, enough joy to break the heart.

Percival returns it reflexively, and they just sit there grinning like fools at each other. 

Then Credence sobers, smile dimming.

"I don't know that a- a man would want to touch it anyway, though." 

Percival reaches out to rest a hand on his bony shoulder, Credence leaning into the touch. Tension seems to seep from his body at the contact.

"Any man who, given your permission, is too much of a pissant to treat all parts of your body with respect and care is the kind of man who, A, you shouldn't go home with, and B, doesn't deserve you."

A flash of that luminous smile again, Credence's careworn face tipping briefly against the inside of Percival's arm, a brief kiss of skin on skin. His voice is soft, wondering. "It still doesn't seem real. That I can say that I... I like men. That I have the chance to be with - with someone I want.

"' _ Then, if I found you outside, I would kiss you, and no one would despise me _ ,'" Credence whispers, the words ringing with the weight of centuries. He smiles, wry. "Song of Songs, chapter eight, verse one. I'll never forget it. It made me understand- realize who I am. The narrator's a woman, talking to a man, but I - the first time I read that line, I imagined myself, and a man, and I wept."

Percival says nothing, only strokes his rough thumb over Credence's shoulder until he rouses himself from his reverie. It takes a few minutes, but that’s all right; better to make sure this first time kneeling is enjoyable rather than hurry the process.

At last, Credence shakes himself, sighing, and Percival says,

"How do you feel? Was your first time kneeling all right?"

"I feel... good. Light." Credence's eyes widen, as if surprised by the fact. "It was really good."

"We're almost to the end of the session. When you're ready, get up off the cushion and get your notebook. I need to give you your assignment for this week." Percival fetches the slim blue book from his briefcase and places it on the coffee table along with a set of red, yellow, and green page markers.

"' _ Kink A - Z _ ?'" Credence reads aloud while he's tying his shoes. 

"It's one of my favorites. Goes through a whole range of different kinks in alphabetical order, and what really makes it excellent is that each kink is explained from a dominant's and a submissive's perspective. It also has illustrations - pen and ink, decently tasteful - and suggestions for books and websites for further research." Percival has spent more than a few hours on those websites.

"What do you want me to do with it?" Credence picks up the book and page markers, but keeps his attention on Percival, not at all distracted by the new objects. God, the man's a treasure.

"I want you to read it, and mark each kink with a green flag for things you're pretty sure you'll like, yellow flag for things you're not sure about, and red flag for things you absolutely don't want to try. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Percival," Credence says, and Percival could grow far too used to hearing his name said in that voice. 

"Good. Check in with Seraphina on your way out, she'll schedule your next appointment." Percival meets Credence by the door, holds out a hand to stop him momentarily. "If at any point between now and then, you start to feel depressed, upset, sad, anything negative, text me or Newt. Also." He pauses, then rests his hand on Credence's shoulder, squeezing. "You were so brave and good today. Thank you, Credence. I'm proud of you."

Credence, smiling, book clutched to his chest, shivers, murmurs, "Thank you, Percival," and departs.

Percival shuts the door, turns around, and sags back against it, staring at the cushion, still bearing the imprints of Credence's knees; the bowl of grapes Credence had eaten; the scuff on the sofa leg from his tennis shoes.

He already misses him, and this-

This is starting to look too much like Theseus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism and comments are welcomed! I do my best to respond to all of them. Additionally, if you want to follow me on tumblr, my username is 'themonstersoflove'. Thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

"Graves," Percival says into his cellphone as he juggles it and his laptop and his files on his way to the living room.

"I can't believe you did the bloody cup thing _again_ ," Newt says, a frown audible in his voice. "Credence loved the metaphor, but I hope you know how lucky you were he didn't break it. It took me _ages_ to clean up the shards from Theseus', and even then I was still finding bits of porcelain in the vacuum bags for months!"

"In Theseus' case, I think he just enjoyed the chance to express his anger." Graves props the phone between his shoulder and chin as he dumps the files onto the couch and takes a seat. "Did you call just to reprimand me for my metaphors?"

"Much as I love to, no. I was calling to check in on how your session with Credence went and to share some information I got from my last session with him. Which do you- get _off_ , Dougal - want first?"

"Information."

"Right." The shuffle of papers. "Well, if Mary Lou Barebone didn't deserve everything coming to her for her policies on LGBT folks, she'd definitely deserve it for her stance on masturbation."

The remnants of his Catholic childhood rise up and cloak Graves in faded incense-scented shame. "I assume she went on about 'the sin of Onan.'" Not surprising. He's had no small number of clients dealing with shame over masturbation.

"Worse. She would punish the younger congregation members for masturbating, and then for having wet dreams."

Graves bites the inside of his cheek to hold back the curse. "Did she not realize that preventing masturbation would increase the likelihood of wet dreams? Or that it would only be obvious for male adolescents, and thus hideously unfair to them?" He can practically see Newt's resigned shrug.

"If she did, she didn't care."

"I wish I could say I was surprised."

A huff of something near a laugh, the click of a teacup on a wood floor. Newt, shifting on his cushion, no doubt leaning against Tina's leg, clipboard propped against his knee.

"And Credence's session with you? Have you come to any conclusions?"

"Some. So far he's presented as a classic submissive, motivated by pleasing others and the surrender of control, the giving of trust. I don't have enough data on his responses to guess how he'd respond to accouterments like restraints, but my instinct is that they'd only be window dressing for the power exchange and he'd be perfectly happy without them. He doesn't seem like the sort to enjoy being a brat, even in play - at the moment the blurring of the lines between good and bad behavior would be confusing and upsetting to him." The sound of Newt's pen fills his ear, and he takes a moment, while Newt writes, to indulge in the image of Credence tucked beside his feet, face turned into his knee, allowing Percival's hand to range across those slim shoulders.

Something simple. Uncomplicated. If only.

"'Some conclusions,' he says," Newt mutters, but the scratching of pen across paper doesn't cease. "Any ideas as to what he might need from a future partner?"

"Someone who doesn't play games; he's had enough of that for a lifetime. Someone firm but fair, free with praise. Right now his self-esteem is near-zero, so his future partner will need to spend time building that up. A partner who is capable of appreciating that he only wants to be good and meet expectations, so possibly one a bit older; a lot of younger dominants these days have gotten into the fantasy of 'forcing submission,' and while he might try to be what they want, it'd be traumatizing. Younger dominants also might fall into the trap of seeing his desire to please and be good as being something used for their benefit, rather than seeing it as a responsibility. If someone places that much trust in you, it's your duty to leverage that trust to help them be the best version of themselves."

Silence across the telephone line.

"Newt?"

"Sometimes your insight frightens me, Percival," Newt says at last.

Percival shrugs. "Made me a good cop." One of the city's best, and he can say that without arrogance. Yet all that corruption and decay, wallowing in it year in and year out - the badge hadn't been worth that.

"Yeah." A beat, then, "The anniversary is coming up. Out at the lake house."

 _Anniversary_? What does it have to do with him, he wasn't even allowed at the memorial-

"We're going to scatter his ashes. You could come."

Percival swallows. The edges of the phone cut into his palm. "But your father-"

"He had to sell the lake house anyway just to try and stave off some of Theseus' medical debts, so we won't even be on property that he owns anymore," Newt cuts in, voice rising, desperate, "Besides, he's had nearly a year-"

"Newt, he called me a prostitute."

"And Theseus told him-"

Percival takes a deep breath. Auburn hair falling in tufts onto worn gray blankets. The hum of an electric razor, exposing skin stretched eggshell-thin over Theseus' skull, the twisted veins of surgical scars, the dying brain within. Theseus' bony hand resting over Percival's on his shoulder, swollen knuckles dotted with tears.

"Newt," he says again, and something in his voice strikes Newt dumb, "It wasn't that he called me a prostitute, or that he refused to believe that I stopped taking Theseus' money when we fell in love, or that he kept me from the funeral. It was that he barred me from Theseus' _deathbed_. That - I can't be there, if he will be."

"I-" and then Tina's voice, a low murmur in the background, and at last Newt returns to the phone, resigned.

"I understand. I just- I know you didn't get to come to the funeral, so I thought, maybe, if you could at least be at this..." he trails off.

"I know, Newt. And I appreciate the thought." He does, truly, even if the offer drags old wounds back into the light. It's taken months to uncurl from around the wound Theseus had left in his heart, to peel away the scars. He can't go back to that. "Besides, I might be more focused on other things then."

Newt accepts the redirection gratefully, and they say goodbye with only a tinge of awkwardness.

Percival sets the phone down on the side table and draws his feet up onto the couch with him, suddenly cold. Newt had meant the invitation in good faith, of course, but-

There are some things Newt can never understand. He had years to know Theseus.

Percival had only nine months, and those spent feeling Theseus crumble through his grip, no word or deed enough to keep him anchored, safe within Percival's arms. To have had those moments ripped from him at the end-

He tips his head back on the couch and thinks of Credence instead. Those dark feline eyes, the determined surrender of his fragile body into Percival's power, the frantic beat of his pulse in the veins of his wrists as he dared to trust again.

That bravery is worth commendation, but Percival has to be careful; he let his boundaries thin, once, let Theseus in all his irascible dying-ember glory enrapture him. Oh, of course he'd agonized over it, sat across from Seraphina and drank innumerable cups of awful tea, trapped in questions; how could he separate love from the affection of caretaker for charge, could this be love or only duty, what made him any different from people who would exploit the vulnerable?

Seraphina, in her inimitable way, had let him pour out his doubts before asking the one question that needed to be spoken.

_'What would you give for him, Percival?'_

_'Anything. Everything.'_

The click of cup upon saucer. _'Then.'_

Percival opens his eyes, watches the sunlight fade red and gold across the ceiling, and doesn't think of flames.

-   

It takes Credence longer than it should to get to his assignment, but in fairness, he has years of education to catch up on. (Newt, who is always asking him to be kinder to himself, would be proud.)

He makes himself a cup of tea - the ritual hitting his chest with a pang of missing Modesty, who used to sit up nights with him, her feet swinging above the floor, and have a cup - and curls up on the couch. _'Kink A-Z'_ shines gently in the dim lamplight.

Stupid to be frightened. It's just a book. Not a portal to Hell, or an amalgamation of sin. Some of the things in it he's probably already seen.

He reaches for it and flips it open. Is confronted with a lively pen and ink sketch of a person in-

Footie pajamas?

He’s momentarily paralyzed by First Corinthians 13:11 howling in his head.

Um. Well. He shouldn't reject it out of hand. Mr. Graves - no, Percival, he must remember - wants him to be well-informed. So he reads, about age play and coloring and the freedom from worry or want, and yes, that last bit sounds good, but the rest, he just doesn't get the appeal.

He tags it yellow and takes a fortifying sip of tea, turning a page.

His fingertips tremble against the paper. The Holiness Code of Leviticus flashes across the insides of his eyelids, and he swallows. Again. Again, his heart thundering. His palms burn.

No. No. _No-_

He torched a barn for this, exiled himself for the chance to live, and-

Percival wanted him to try.

He inches open an eyelid to peer at the drawing - two drawings, actually. One two men, smiling faces close, the top's hand cupping the bottom's cheek. One a woman with a harness and a - a penis, bent over the curved back of a man, her hips drawing back, her head tossed back on what looks like a laugh.

Normal - no, _straight_ \- men can like this, too?

The people in the drawing don't look like they're in pain, like they're bleeding to death from being torn open, or struck down by holy fire. There's no screaming mouths or tears on their cheeks.

He opens both eyes. The bottom in the two men even looks aroused, his hand on his genitals, the other bracing the top's shoulder. They look happy. In love.

The information on anal play - and that's another revelation, that these things are called 'play,' like they can be fun or lighthearted or anything other than the doom of his soul - talks about the prostate, about G-spots, about preparation and carefulness.

Holding his breath, hardly believing himself, he places a green tag on the page.

Next is bondage, and oh, there's a shocking number of ways to tie people up. The woman they interview for the sub's role talks about safety, about knowing she can move and twist and get nowhere but where her dom wants her, where she's supposed to be.

There's a flicker in Credence's chest, a bone-deep recognition of, 'Yes. _That_.'

It's always been so easy to be in the wrong place. To do the wrong thing. To say the wrong words. To suffer for them.

He keeps reading through cock worship and collars, exhibitionism - that only reminds him of Naomi, Sarah, the women struggling to hold their icy poise surrounded by jeers - red tag - to following orders.

Another resonance. Another green tag.

There's almost something fun about this, about a book full of potential rather than rules. Should he be afraid, that he's enjoying this, that he's giving into all the sin his mother preached damnation for?

'Given away' drenches him in ice water. The tea goes cold in his mouth.

'Impact play' makes it worse, and abruptly all the fun has left.

He realizes he's shivering as if the information has come from a distant star. His fingers twitch against the pages, and saliva fills his mouth.

The couch has faded from beneath him. The mug of tea weighs down his hand, and even the motion of breathing seems insurmountable. He's supposed to do something, when he feels bad...

Text Newt or Percival. But that seems pointless - he can, or should, be able to handle himself. What else did he sacrifice for, if not for this? For the chance to stand on his own two feet?

Percival had said to call. He doesn't- can't disappoint him or Newt, the time they've invested in him.

Credence fumbles for his cellphone and stabs Newt's number into the keypad with numb and tingling fingers, then regrets it and starts to press the red button, but oh, no, Newt's already on the line.

"Hello?"

His heartbeat drowns him. The clink of dishes on the other end.

"Hello, Credence?"

He manages to squeak out a "Yes," the word more breath than sound.

"Sorry, Tina, I'll get the dishes in a few minutes, client call - _don't_ hang up-" the command in the voice halts Credence in the act of stabbing the red button and he startles, juggles the phone a bit, "-are you safe?"

Credence forces out something approaching a sound past the block in his throat.

"Where are you?"

"In my apartment." His voice comes from far away. "I'm on the couch. I'm okay, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called-"

"Stop."

He stops.

"Breathe."

He breathes, and Newt breathes with him, and breath by breath the feeling returns to his fingers, the world filters back into his ears. He opens his mouth to apologize-

"Don't."

-and closes it again, mystified. How does Newt _do_ that?

"All right. So. What triggered that?"

Credence glances back at _'Kink A-Z'_   lying unassumingly on the threadbare beige cushions. On the open pages, the little ink sub walks away with a little ink dom, waving a cheerful goodbye to a different dom. "It's stupid, I promise."

"Ah _hah_ , negative self-talk, cognitive distortion! You owe Dougal a treat."

He grins despite himself. "He'll be thrilled."

"Of course. The trigger?"

"Um. Well, Mr. Graves - Percival, sorry - he gave me this book, _Kink A-Z_?"

Newt laughs. "Of course he trotted out that classic. What do you think?"

"It's interesting. But there were these sections - I read them, and-" an ache bores through behind his eyes, the remnant of what had been tears, before- before Ma.

"And?"

Credence licks suddenly dry lips. "Do subs really do that? Get hit? Get given away to someone else? Ma always- she always said that that happened out in the world, that if you were worthless they'd just give up on you and we were lucky to not have that, and I- I thought she was lying. She had to be lying."

A pause. The sound of a sliding glass door, then the chirp of crickets in the dusk, and Credence suddenly misses home, the deep shadows of the woods, the rustle of dry cornstalks, so much it aches like an unhealed wound in his chest.

"Impact play is somewhat common," Newt says, "but it comes in many different degrees. Some partners never go beyond a hand, and if that's what both of them want, then that works for them. As for being given away," a sigh, "the book's come in for criticism due to including edgeplay like that in something meant as a primer. Suffice it to say that in all my years of clinical practice and study, I've worked with fewer than ten couples who wanted to incorporate being given away, or cuckolding, or anything like that. I don't think it's something you're likely to encounter, and if it ever is, all you need to do is point to your contract where you've flagged it as a hard limit. Should settle the debate nicely."

"All right." Credence takes a deep breath. He forces himself to relax into the couch cushions.

"Why did the idea of being given away get to you?"

"There was." He halts. "In a compound, to the west. Elk Creek. They had a woman, she was a dominant, and-"

The words lodge in his throat, sharp as an angel's sword, bitter as the first fruit. A serpent's venom, oozing from head crushed beneath heel.

"Red," Credence says, and Newt replies, all gentle sorrow,

"Okay, Credence. Okay."

-

Today's session is going to be a tricky one.

Credence flinches back into the couch when Percival shuts the door. His knuckles tighten on the worn cloth of his backpack until they stand out white beneath the skin, and his eyes, when he watches Percival cross to his armchair, are flat darkness, nothing like the soft shadows of how he'd left Percival last time.

 _'Kink A-Z'_ sits on the coffee table between them, its pages bristling with plastic flags. About the expected amounts of yellow and red for someone recovering from abuse.

"Good afternoon." Percival pitches his voice low, steady, keeps his face impassive; Credence looks about to vibrate out of his own skin with tension and fear, no need to add to it by asking too many questions yet.

The box is running low on teabags, he'll have to order more. Percival lifts an empty cup in Credence's direction, and Credence nods, fingers loosening in the canvas.

Silence stretches between them, broken only by the clicking of china and the slosh of milk. Percival makes them both tea and sets the cup and saucer on the coffee table for Credence to take, mindful of how Credence tracks the motion of his hands at every moment.

Credence reaches for the cup, his sleeve pulling back to reveal a set of bruises forming across the back of one pale wrist, flowering into purple. Someone had cuffed him? No, the bruises are too small, though they're rising into the shapes of fingers: a child's hand?  

"Can you tell me what happened?"

Credence lifts his eyes from his cup to gaze at the center of Percival's chest. His throat convulses in a swallow. His hands tremble about the cup, tea licking at the rim, and the florid bruises stand out against his bones.

"Modesty," he says, toneless.

"Your sister?"

"Yes." Another twitch and swallow, and he sets the cup down in its saucer a bit too hard, cracks spiderwebbing across china. Tea beads on the cracks like blood through skin. " _Oh-_ "

His eyes grow huge and dark in his face, expression crumpling, as though he expects Percival to lunge across the table. His shoulders jerk, knees pull inward, mouth tightening as if to contain a howl. A tremble that seems likely to become a spasm sets up in his limbs, and he glances at them with blank incomprehension, as if they belong to someone else entirely, as if he has never known them before. The shudder catches his lip between teeth, blood pearling vivid crimson against the pale slope of his chin. He hitches a breath, opens his mouth as if to apologize through the blood.

Percival snatches for the cushion behind his back and tosses it to the floor beside his left knee. "Kneel there for me, please," he says, sharp, jerking his chin at the cushion, and Credence scrambles gratefully around the table and falls to his knees on the gray fabric.

"Hands behind your back. Grab your wrists."   

Credence unknots his fingers, manages to wrestle his shuddering arms into position. His breathing eases as the position pulls his ribcage upright, gives his lungs room to expand.

"Good. Widen your knees." The position will force Credence further upright to counterbalance, pull him out of whatever spiral he's caught himself in by making him focus on keeping in position. "Keep them like that. Good."

Credence's head hangs low, dark hair sheltering his face. Was this something he had done, once? Denied his tormentors the victory of his pain?

"Lift your head, if you can."

Credence does, at last, and his face is a horror: milk-white, his lip smeared in his own blood. He tries to meet Percival's eyes, mouth twitching in an ingratiating smile that cuts Percival to the bone.

"Sorry-"

"Stop. It's all right." Percival meets Credence's anguished gaze and doesn't smile. Can't smile, all his attention bent towards holding Credence together when something - someone - seems to have possessed him and torn him asunder. "It's only a cup. I want to know what happened to your wrist, if you can tell me."

Credence's attention flickers to Percival's hands once more, so quick it's doubtful he even knows he's done it.

Ah. Can't even ask for that.

Percival sets his hand on the slope of Credence's shoulder, fingers folded so as to avoid touching his back. Scars nudge his knuckles, and the knowledge is ash on his tongue. Every muscle is stone beneath his palm, bow strung too long until the wood begins to warp, to break so as to never be put back right-

He whispers a low "Shhh," as if gentling a spooked beast, skims the flat of his hand over a whipcord-lean shoulder. His thumb rests against the pulse of Credence's neck, finds it racing.

A stifled sob breaks through Credence’s clenched teeth, and then a grotesque apology, thick-slurred with shame.

"Here," Percival says, and dabs at the blood on his lip with a handkerchief. Thankfully they’re both clean, fluid-wise; he’s worked with clients with blood-borne diseases before, and it requires some extra preparation he hasn’t done.

Credence’s dry eyes dart to the handkerchief in Percival’s hand, the dark stain there. He shudders. Submits to the care. Bends, presses his furrowed brow to Percival’s thigh. No tears, still, only the blooming damp of hitching breaths against his trouser leg. He’s kept his arms folded behind his back - _such a good boy_ \- and Percival, overcome, rests his hand atop the vulnerable white expanse of his neck and breathes.

The trembling eases, and Credence speaks, his voice ragged and worn thin as the rest of him.

“I visited Modesty, before I came here.”

Percival strokes his thumb across the hollow at the back of Credence’s skull in acknowledgment. Shorn hair rustles against his fingertips like late summer grasses, burnt low by unending heat. Denied growth.

“Her foster family’s house is on the bus line I take to come here. So is Chastity’s - my other sister - but she won’t see me.” A swallow. “Modesty is in school now. Middle school. She, um - she has a boyfriend, I think. He offered to carry her books for her. Her tray, in the lunch line.”

All normal, so far. The expected behavior of a young sub feeling his way through his first relationship, but then he’s fallen for a young dom who has no idea what to do, will probably have archaic expectations of everything and everyone.

“Modesty likes him. A lot. They were spending all their time together. He’d walk her to the car pick up line and then go get his bus. Last Thursday, he was walking her to the pick up line, and he dropped her books. Deliberately, she said.”

Again, expected; attention-seeking behavior, looking for a correction. Something that would be handled with an apology - no doubt overly dramatic - and being denied the opportunity to carry anything for her until he proved himself worthy.

“Hm. And I’m guessing Modesty, who’s excited to express her dominance, overreacted.”

Credence lifts his face to Percival. His expression is weary, wiped clean of feeling. “She picked up her books and told him he was an awful sub.”

Percival keeps his incredulous expression from showing with effort. “That’s quite a reaction.”

“He thought so.” Credence lifts one shoulder in a shrug, as if he doesn’t understand why Modesty’s response was terrible. Perhaps, horribly, he doesn’t. “He yelled at her and then ran off, and now everyone in school thinks she’s cruel, she says. She has to have a meeting with the principal.” He glances over his shoulder at his bruised wrist, Percival removing his hand as he turns. “So when I visited, she was angry with me. We got into it on the front porch - she was angry that I changed everything, that nothing made sense, no one acted the way they were supposed to, she’d only acted the way doms back home did and now everyone was mad at her.”

“I see.”

“I told her that I didn’t understand why they were mad either. She was in tears. Mad at herself for being upset - doms aren’t supposed to cry. Mad at me. Mad at the world, I guess.” He huffs a sad, sodden little laugh. “Anyway, she grabbed my wrist and wanted to drag me inside to explain why she acted the way she did, but then the foster parents came outside and made me leave. I can’t go back until they say it’s okay.”

Percival reaches for his cup of tea, only somewhat to stall for time.

“That’s a lot to unpack.”

“I know,” Credence says, and the defeat in his voice runs Percival through.

“But doable. Do you want to move back to the couch, or are you comfortable there?”

Credence tenses at the mere mention of moving, his hands tightening around his wrists. “I- Can I - _may_ I stay, please?” Such constant self-correction, self-evaluation: how exhausting it must be.

“Of course, thank you for asking. That was good of you,” Percival says, and delights in the flush blooming across Credence’s too-pale face, the way his lips twitch in an instinctive shy smile.

“Let’s start with Modesty. What do you think she did wrong with her boyfriend?”

Credence casts his gaze down, shifting his weight. His brow furrows, and Percival starts to lean forward to kiss that frown away-

_No. Not an option._

“Do you want what I’ve been taught she did wrong, or what I think this- this world thinks she did wrong?”

“Oh, you clever thing,” Percival says despite himself, smiling, and Credence ducks his head and shivers in embarrassed pleasure. “How about both?”

Credence looks up. “We were taught that doms had to have complete control at all times. His behavior would have reflected badly on her and shown her to be incapable of controlling him. She would’ve been seen as not controlling his innate sinfulness, allowing him to return to being a bad person and a danger to all our souls, and so she would have been punished for that along with him.”

A bad person. Incarnate sin and collective punishments: so many reasons to pity everyone in those compounds, twisted from birth. So little room for mercy, or kindness, or playfulness.

“And in this world, why do you think her actions are seen as wrong?”

Credence's fingers tighten about his wrists. He looks away from Percival at ‘ _Kink A - Z_ ,’ lying unassumingly on the coffee table.

“I think,” he says, halting, “that they think she went too far? Maybe it was a mistake? But maybe he chose to drop her books?” He pulls his lower lip in as if to chew it, then shivers when Percival persuades it free with a gentle thumb and sits back.

“Why do you think he might have done that?”

Another half-shrug. “Maybe he was angry at her? Maybe he wanted to get her in trouble? That’s - that's the only power we had, a lot of the time.”

Percival breathes out his anger and sorrow. Steadies himself. “Think this way. He's young. He likes Modesty, this new dom, and he's been providing her service. He's intensely focused on her, and let's say maybe Modesty hasn’t been as focused on him as he wants.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Credence says, eyes alight. “He wanted attention.”

Percival rewards him with a smile. “Her attention, specifically. And he placed his trust in her by - yes, being a bit of a brat and choosing to drop her books but also hoping to get her to exert some dominance over him by giving him a correction. I imagine he was trying to be playful, trusting she would understand the harmless nature of it and hoping to deepen the relationship.”

Credence crumbles, eyes downcast. “So he was trying to act… like a boyfriend should.”

“I'm afraid so.”

“We never had books, they were much too expensive.” He straightens, as if to argue his sister's case. All at once the strength that led him to take a match to his life blazes forth. “We weren't even allowed to touch the Bible, and he _dropped_ them.”

Percival leans forward to curl his hand about the back of Credence's neck in attempted comfort. “Which probably made Modesty overreact. But from his perspective, and those around him - and remember, for many teenagers a public incident is the worst possible thing - he made an overture and had his trust in her thrown back in his face. Then being called a bad sub, a bad _person_ , on top of that?”

“Oh,” Credence says, and swallows hard. He shudders against Percival’s hand, as if imagining the pain of those words. Perhaps he doesn't need to imagine. “I see now. I. I should call her, I need to tell her I'm sorry-” he starts to rise off the cushion, then pauses, as if remembering his promise. His heartbeat ratchets up against Percival’s skin, his gaze darting towards Percival and then away.

“That was one of our rules, wasn’t it?” Credence’s voice starts on a quiver, then firms into stolid resignation. “Not to say ‘I’m sorry’ without you telling me it’s okay.” He lowers himself to his knees once more with pained precision, awaiting judgment.

_What?_

“Our rule was for unnecessary apologies to me on your behalf, not for mentioning the word in conversation,” Percival says. The last thing he wants to do at this juncture in the relationship is offer a correction, especially when Credence showed up to the appointment already overwrought. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“No, before that. When I first knelt. Remember?” Those long-boned pale fingers curl into the fabric of his jeans. Pink and silver scars lick about their curves, and Percival swallows down bile.

“I do remember.” The words pry free between his teeth. “I don’t think you deserve a correction for something said in a heightened emotional state.”

The reprieve only seems to insult Credence; he leans backward, away from Percival, his expression contorted in misery and shame. No tears, still, even as he stumbles with hitching breaths,

“But I broke the rules. We made rules, we need to follow them-”

Percival leans forward, reaches for Credence’s face. His calluses rasp against Credence’s faint stubble, the sharp cut of his jawline. But his jaw is clenched, and his eyes clear. Whatever this is, whatever’s gotten into him, it’s something worth knowing, something he may have to ignore his own instincts for.

“Can you explain to me why you think you need a correction?” Percival keeps contact, skin on skin, holds Credence’s gaze. If this is that important, he has to see the truth of it in Credence’s eyes.

Credence squares his shoulders even as he trembles. “I need you to punish me. I need- I need one thing to make _sense_ , I need to know that there’s rules - nothing out here is orderly, everyone is too nice, they think I’m fragile or stupid or crazy, and I just-” he sags into Percival’s hands, the warm weight of him an appalling burden. “I thought leaving home would be worth it. We would live in a world that made sense, a better world. And I don’t know if it’s better, or more logical, and everyone I knew hates me for it. For my choice taking away theirs.”

This poor man. Percival brushes one thumb over Credence’s cheek in silent acknowledgment, watches the faint shudder work its way across his skin, the eyelashes sinking like ash in dying wind.

“You were braver than them all, Credence,” Percival says into the scant distance between them, and Credence’s gasp flutters against his fingertips. “You wanted to know the world as it is. Wanted the scales fallen from your eyes, even when everything around you told you to be content with blindness. You, alone. Your bravery should _humble_ them.” He pauses to survey Credence’s face, his voice a low rumble. “If you truly believe you deserve correction, if you think you will feel unburdened afterwards, then we’ll do it. On three conditions.”

Relief blooms in Credence’s expression. “Thank you,” he whispers, and tilts his head into Percival’s hand. Has his world been the wrong way around all the time? Has he needed more structure this keenly all along?

No time for questions. He has a sub who needs him to make the world make sense.

“First, I choose the amount of time. Second, I choose the correction, even if you think it’s too light, and you may. Third, there will be aftercare until I’m satisfied you’ve recovered and are emotionally able to move on. Do you accept my authority as your dominant in these matters?”

Credence’s expression is luminous, an easy yielding into Percival’s hands. He licks his lips and says, soft in the hush,

“Yes, sir.”

Percival could hear that voice and those words every day for the rest of his life. He contents himself with running a thumb over Credence’s cheekbone, the thin skin beneath his eye. “Thank you. Now-

Bring me your book.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If you feel inclined to leave a comment or criticism, I'd love to hear them and will do my best to respond ASAP.


	6. Chapter 6

Credence brings his book to Percival, then toes off his shoes and socks and stands, dry-mouthed, waiting.

Percival runs a rough thumb over the spine of the book. Glances up at Credence. His expression shifts, dark eyes deepening further, edge of his mouth twisting in thought. The warmth in him recedes. No cruelty, though, or wrath, and he had made sure to ask Credence's consent, had seemed doubtful of him wanting this-

Credence curls his fingers into fists as goosebumps march up his spine. 

Percival stands, and it's a shock every time to realize that Percival, who seems so unrelenting and powerful, is actually just his height or a little less. "Follow me."

He trails Percival to a patch of bare gray wall and pale pine-plank floor by the door. What could Percival be planning to do with this? Have him stand with his nose in a corner? Hold cast iron pots in his hands? Where would he even store the cast iron?

Percival looks him over, then seems to come to a decision and nods down at the floor. "Kneel there, just close enough that you can press your palms hard to the wall without leaning forward."

Credence glances sidelong at the firm jaw, the unyielding bar of his spine, and obeys, folding to his knees on the floor. He shifts, the stretch in his thighs and lower back intensifying into a dull hum as he tucks his feet beneath him the way Percival showed him, spreads his knees. The bubbles in the paint press into his palms as he places them flat against the wall and spreads his fingers.

Percival, at his side, touches his shoulder, guides his posture upright, presses his knees an inch or two forward. His touch is kind and careful, as it always is, but impersonal - nothing like the warm tenderness of his thumb on Credence's cheekbone, or those strong fingers curled about his chin.

A tap at his cheek makes him turn his head to Percival, crouched beside him. "Your words."

"Red to stop. Yellow for a break." He doesn't know why he'd ever need a break; just kneeling here won't be difficult at all, barely a punishment, but he had asked for this. Wanted it. Wanted to know what Percival would do, how he could make the world real again.

"They still apply, even in this. I won't leave you alone, ever, while you're in bondage, even if it's honor bondage. I'll be listening if you need me." Percival reaches into his pocket and comes out with something enfolded in clenched fingers. He opens them to show the glint of three coins - heavy and gold, the old kind of dollar coins Credence has only seen in movies through windows. 

"Lift your palms off the wall just a bit." He slips the coins beneath Credence's hands and nods, satisfied, when Credence presses his palms back to the wall quick enough to keep them from falling. "Good. Face forward." The last coin he places atop Credence's head, skin-warm metal pressing against his hair. 

Credence is impressed despite himself, and his expression must be a sight, since Percival smiles. 

"Ten minutes. Don't let them fall." Then he stands and moves out of Credence's line of sight. Shoes click against the floor, then become muffled as he moves onto carpet. The creak of the armchair frame. Pages turning.

Well. Credence swallows and faces forward to gaze at the wall. Breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth. Finds himself, unaccountably, irritated, a low burn of anger warming his cheeks. This is barely even a punishment - he'd expected something else, something more difficult, writing lines or holding something heavy - does Percival  _ really  _ think him that weak?

The coin starts to slip from beneath his right hand and he presses that hand harder against the wall, an ache setting up in the back of his shoulder, spreading left.

He'd promised to accept. 

He closes his eyes, tries to breathe out the anger. 

Like this, eyes closed, held still by his hands on the wall, his feet tucked beneath him, warm ache building in his thighs, he's contained. Kept still. Kept safe. 

When he had been younger, wrathful, a rage in him that had led to broken dishes, snapped brooms, fear in the eyes of the younger children - an anger that Ma had taken no small joy in trying to extinguish - there had been a room in the barn. An old closet, cobwebbed, dark, the bulb dead long ago, and just large enough for him to curl up inside, back to the wall, feet against the door. Just far enough from the houses that he could scream at the colossal unfairness, the stultifying boredom of ‘staying sweet’ and obedient, the constant tension throughout every muscle. Strong enough to take the kicking and pounding of his childish anger. A space without thought or judgment. The only space he fit in.

Chastity found him in the closet once. Must have told Ma, as when he returned to it the next time it had been nailed shut, the doorknob torn off, the hole covered over with a bit of spare wood. They’d taken everything from him - his friends, his education, his family - but could not be satisfied with that - had wanted to steal even that last final inch, the only way he could keep himself sane within their bounds. Had left him with only the silence in his head, the only place he could speak.

Not for nothing did he start the fire.

There’s an ache in the back of his throat, of tears swallowed. No one gets his tears, his honesty - the little things he can still deny them. 

Sweat drips across his shoulders and down his back, dampens the collar of his shirt. His shoulders are screwed tight together, a throb of warm pain spreading its wings across his back. Rage is an unfamiliar taste in his mouth, copper and salt. He imagines an oily shadow inside his mouth, clotting his throat - the anger they’ve left him with, the anger he cannot let out. 

The coins are ice against his trembling palms, the top of his head. If only they would remain impressed into his skin, a claim, something tangible keeping him here and anchored in this storm. He imagines them as cuffs and a stake tying him still, keeping him safe. 

His breathing is an awful rattle and whistle through his nose, the damp gasp of an injured animal, his mouth awash in bitter rage and bile, every breath a scald, the thin skin beneath his jammed-shut eyes one large expanse of heated pain from the leaking of involuntary tears - another weakness- and he’s angry, he’s so - _dare he?_  - goddamn angry he burns with it, catches alight like a mighty flame, so angry the flood can’t quench it-

But he’s caught. Held by three coins and a promise. The anger can’t get out of him here, is held down by Percival’s gaze on his back, Percival’s promise to listen, to be there, by Credence’s own foolish need to make Percival proud, to endure.

There’s a hoarse and wretched sobbing in the room, cut off in a jagged gulp of air when Percival’s hand settles on the sweat-damp curve of his neck. The immutable weight of the coin on his head disappears. A thud in the floorboards. Percival’s voice, very close.

“Lift up your right hand. Let it go.” 

How can he? He carries it with him. It is part of him, as much as bones and blood - what will he be without his anger, the only sign, even to himself, that he had yet to surrender?

“Shh.” Percival gentles him, his voice filtering past the horrid hitch and gulp and trapped thin wail behind Credence’s teeth. His fingertips nudge at the bottom of Credence’s arm, urge Credence to pull his palm away from the wall.

Metal slides against paint. Away, leaving him swaying in a void, one hand and one coin keeping him real in the red tide.

He sucks in a great heaving breath, tries not to shake and fails- the anger is too great-

A hand on his left wrist.

“ _ Percival _ -” his voice is awful, thick and sodden, high-pitched with terror, he wants to open his eyes but he can’t, he has already said too much, he can’t-

Percival’s hand moves, drags warmth in its wake, settles heavy over the back of his own, pressing his palm closer. Cedar and rainwater cologne. Warmth. His voice, without pity, pressed to the hollow behind Credence’s left ear, where no mouth has ever rested.

“I won’t take it from you. Is that what you wanted?”

Credence can’t speak. Manages a nod through the shivers wracking him. All of his attention is tuned to a fine point, a needle piercing gold metal, the embossed ‘legal tender’ pressed reverse into his skin.

“Here’s what going to happen. I’m going to fold my fingers over yours so you can keep hold of the coin. You’re going to turn to your left and move forward into me.” Breath against his ear. Certainty, the promise of quiet, of relief from the anger. “I’m going to take my hand-” a faint squeeze atop his left hand, “- and bring your arm around behind your back to hold both wrists in this hand. Then we’re going to stand, and you’re going to follow me. Do you understand? Color?”

He manages a whispered, “Green.” Tastes salinity. Can’t stop  _ leaking-  _ how can he cry when he feels so furious?

“Once I have you near the couch, I’m going to lie down beneath you- no? On top?”

“Green.” The warmth, he can imagine it- the solidity of being held down so the feelings can’t shake him, will pass over him, through him. Elijah atop the dead boy, restoring him to life with the breath and weight of him.

"All right. Just let me move you. Open your eyes whenever you feel you're ready."

Credence follows Percival's movements. Hisses out as his shoulders relax, the pain lingering in a red-brown smear across the inside of his eyelids. Warm callused fingers curl about the fragility of his wrists, thumb reinforcing the curl of his own fingers about the coin. His heart is a roar, the bitter black taste of his own tears fading into the back of his throat, papered over with rain.

"I'm going to put my hand on your waist to help you stand. If you need to, lean on me."

Credence lets his neck relax, his head loll forward. His forehead bumps into the broad expanse of Percival's shoulder. The waffle-knit of his gray shirt is a shock against his forehead, and he presses harder, burrows, wanting the anchor. The fabric dampens quickly beneath his face, and it has to be sweat, has to be-

Standing is an unimaginable effort. His legs shake like a newborn calf's, but he hitches a breath and follows Percival. Two steps. Three. The world is an assault. He breathes in Percival, tugs at his wrists to feel Percival hold them still, hold him safe. 

This, at least, makes sense. This he can trust.

He sits down when the couch bumps against the back of his knees, feels the air shift against his face when Percival bends close. Can imagine what he sees - the reddened face, the bruised and swollen skin beneath his eyes, the snot-

"-dence."

He stutters awake, jerks against Percival's grip, only manages to turn into Percival's hand, warm against his jaw. A thumb skims his cheekbone. 

His bones weigh him down into the forgiving fabric of the couch, but his skin is alive, oversensitive, the dregs of the anger pulling him down, apart-

His lips shape a "Yes, sir?"

"Face down or face up?"

He shudders. Twists. "Up." The other way - it presages too much. Too vulnerable, with a man lying atop him.

"All right. Thank you." 

His face burns with the intensity of Percival's study. He reaches for words to explain the depth of his fear, his rage- whatever this nameless thing is that has woken inside him, that grasps him by the back of the neck and shakes him like a cat does a mouse-

"You've been so good today, Credence," Percival says, and the softness of his voice eases him down onto the couch where he sprawls, shivering, safe with his wrists in Percival's hands. 

Something heavy and soft settles over him from his feet to his shoulders. "Weighted blanket," Percival murmurs, then, "I'm going to get on the couch now, Credence. I have to let go of your wrists. Can you hold onto that coin for me, darling?"

He hums an affirmative, settling into the warmth of the blanket, the enrapturing gift of being called 'darling.' Of being thought of as someone worthy of the name. Can imagine Percival's half-twist of a smile, the crinkle around his eyes like old paper. The edges of the coin bite into his fingers.

The couch dips beside his hip, air shifting, the creak of denim stretching- he rolls into Percival's body.

It is a shock to all his senses. He hasn't been close to another person since Naomi and Sarah, and this is wholly different - the warmth of Percival, the long lean line of him pressed to Credence's side, the power in his thigh and knee, tossed over Credence's legs to keep him still.

His arms, a strength Credence can't fight against, doesn't want to, gather Credence into him. One closes about Credence's wrists again, tugs his arms up until they nestle into the space between their chests, hands just poking out of the weighted blanket separating them. The springy curls of his chest hair tickle the sides of Credence's palms through the placket of his henley, and Credence's eyes burn at that-

_ that he would get to touch another man this way _ -

A great and terrible stone is dislodging within him, a column pulled inward by Samson tugging at the chains.

Then, the other hand -

It curls about the back of Credence's head, cups the entirety of his skull, little finger turning warm and intimate in the soft hollow above his neck, long fingers stroking the thin skin behind one ear. Pulls him into that reassuring solidity, the swell of muscle at his shoulder where Credence rests his forehead. When he rolls his face to one side, there is Percival's neck, warm skin, slightly rough with stubble, his pulse a pounding drum against Credence's mouth. 

He can't move. Doesn't need to. Can trust Percival with this storm.

The hand in his hair moves into a slow stroke, from head to the tops of his shoulder. Reteaches him the names of his nerves. That they can bring warmth and pleasure and the agony and gift of being known, being wanted. Found.

So much strength in those fingers, those hands, in Percival - and all of it bent towards his safety-

Why?

The stone breaks free. At last, the deluge.

"I don't  _ understand _ , I never understood," he croaks, finally, and the words eke out past the rage, tiny and fragile and wounded, and they are only the first drops in the rainstorm-

He presses closer to Percival, wishes he could climb within him, bone to bone, shelter in the cage of his ribs- his sobs are an awful howl of grief and pain and rage, always rage, and Percival only takes them, roared out against his neck, and holds Credence anyway. Credence twists, writhes, doesn't know what he's fighting against- can barely remember to whisper 'green' to Percival's urgent murmured demands for a color, thank you, good boy, you're so good, thank you for giving this to me-

Percival holds him. Tightens his hands, his leg, keeps Credence in his body as the rage crests, as his eyes swell and itch with tears, as his fingers bite closer into themselves, the coin slid from his fingers. Keeps him, wants him, even in this awful extremity, this decade of pent-up wrath -

He doesn't know how long he weeps. Only that he comes to to the sound of Percival's heartbeat against his, the scent of his cologne where his face rests between Percival's collarbones, the scent drowning out his own sweat and fear. He blinks salt-encrusted eyelashes, winces when the motion pulls on tender skin.

Percival's thumb, caressing the back of one hand, stills. Percival's hand leaves, curls about Credence's chin, thumb pressing against his lower lip, and tips his head back.

Percival gazes down at him, his hair rumpled, his eyes dark. There is no pity in his face, no retreat, only a tired sort of thankfulness, a tenderness all the more unusual for coming from such a masculine face.

Credence stares, silent, his tongue a thick weight in his mouth. Words slip from his grip.

"There you are," he says, nonsensically, and smooths his thumb across Credence's lip, leaving warmth and a hint of salt behind. "How do you feel?"

Credence swallows. "All right." He wishes he could say a great weight has been lifted from his shoulders, but he can't- he feels more exhausted than ever, but not so stuck with the knives in his chest, the words forever caught behind his teeth. "Thank you, sir."

Percival's eyes darken further, and the hand still cupping Credence's head comes around to cradle one cheek. Careful as ever, he avoids touching the red and abraded skin beneath Credence's eye, and that does it-

"Sir, I don't understand-"

Tears threaten again, and he can't- he can't cry again-

"What don't you understand?" Percival asks, and his voice rumbles into Credence's bones. He is caught in these kind hands, the reassuring darkness of those eyes, the solidity that has held him up beneath the storm.

"How you can be so kind, when- when none of the others who were doms, the other men, were, when they kept- kept hurting, kept taking-" his voice collapses in on itself, and he can only hope the message got through.

Percival’s gaze darts over his face, brow furrowed, but then his expression smooths. His hand tightens, Credence turning his face into that strength.

“They weren’t strong,” Percival says, and he gazes at Credence like he can will him to believe, to understand. “They were weak and cowardly little men who used the power they had been given to do the lowest and most violent of things. They were weak because they  _ failed _ , because they were surrounded by violence and small-mindedness and they  _ chose _ to give into those things. They were thugs, not dominants, because they did not understand the responsibilities they had been given.” 

He leans closer, and his voice drops into a rough burr, something that lights up every nerve in Credence’s skin.

“They didn’t understand that strength, true strength, is knowing the violence your power can do, each and every moment, and _choosing_ gentleness despite everything.”

Credence swallows, and the tears of understanding brim up from his eyes and spill, and Percival gathers him up, gathers him in, holds him together between the span of rough-hewn palms, care in every motion. This man, these hands, he can trust, and the understanding grows in him like a carefully tended flower, the end of an exile, the promised lands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I appreciate all comments and kudos! If you want to scream at me about Gravebone or Sheith, my tumblr is 'themonstersoflove.tumblr.com.'


	7. Chapter 7

Percival holds onto Credence until he slackens against him, ignoring the tears sticking his shirt to his shoulder, one hand closed about Credence’s. He tucks the blanket closer about Credence’s thin limbs, listens for the hitching sobs to soften into steady, slow breaths.

He is so lucky to be entrusted with this brave man.

Credence lifts his face to Percival’s. Nose and eyes red, the waffle-knit of Percival’s henley imprinted into one cheek: adorable, really.

“How do you feel?” Percival studies Credence’s expression, his fingers, pressed to Credence’s wrist, automatically taking his pulse. “Shaky? Cold?”

Credence wrinkles his nose. “Um, hungry?” His voice slurs at the edges, hoarse with remnant tears. He shifts closer against Percival, turning onto his side so they’re chest to chest. “I don’t know why, Mr. Kowalski gave me these pastries after my English lesson. He called them-” he frowns, pronounces with careful precision, “‘ _milles feuilles._ ”

Percival props his head up on his free hand. “And what did you think?”

Credence’s attention drops to Percival’s hand, wrapped around his. He turns his own hands outward to catch Percival’s, wraps his fingers about his own. Seems to compare his hands against Percival’s: the graying black hair at his knuckles, the calluses on his trigger finger. “Too sweet.” He curls Percival’s fingers into his palm, as if studying the flex of tendons in the back of his hand, and the careless sweetness of the motion brings an idiotic grin to Percival’s face.

“I liked the grapes better.” A pause, before he looks up through his lashes - oh, Lord, if it weren’t hideously unethical Percival would have to warn his future Doms against that look - and says, somehow shy and sly at once,

“I don’t suppose... there are any grapes left?”

Percival smiles at him. “You’re in luck, but I’m sure you already knew that. You’ll have to let me up if you want them, though.”

Credence drops Percival’s hand and flings the weighted blanket back in answer, crossing his legs on the sofa. He accepts the sprig of grapes Percival hands him with quiet thanks, turns all of his attention to tearing grapes off the stem and popping them, one by one, into his mouth. While he eats, bony knee tucked against Percival's thigh, Percival reaches for his notes. Credence had indicated the most common hard limits - bodily fluids other than saliva or sexual fluids, permanent marks, breathplay - but his wishlist is surprising: sensory play with different textures or temperatures; bondage, particularly rope; anal play, including fisting - it has been quite some time since Percival had gotten to use that particular skill set; all manner of orgasm manipulation; comeplay; and most surprising, impact play, though that page bore a wide swath of glue along one edge, signs of indecision over the green flag he'd chosen.

"Credence?"

Beside him, Credence stretches to place his grape stem on the coffee table, then turns towards him and pulls his lanky limbs up into his chest. His dark eyes gleam, still hazed with the fringes of subspace. "Yes?"

"Are you sure about the impact play? It looks like you wavered a bit, and I certainly don't want to do anything traumatic."

Credence blinks, surprise flickering across his face, then straightens. Much more settled now that he's been corrected, and Percival has to be impressed all over again at Credence's knowledge of what he needs, what's best for him. It's always good to be reminded that he doesn't know everything. Theseus had been excellent at it, though his reminders were rather more stinging.

"I'm sure. I don't want the part where the dom talked about-" he leans forward to pick ' _Kink A-Z_ ' off the coffee table and flips to the page, scanning it, "-canes and whips for punishment, but he also talked about-" he falters, ears flushing, his voice faltering, "-spanking his sub. With his hand. And she said in her bit that she liked it. It made her feel close to her dom and she felt warm." There's the lilt of a question in his voice. "I don't think I'd like pain, but the closeness sounds, um, really nice." The flush travels onto his sharp cheeks, and Percival has to look down at his notes lest he stare.

"So you don't want impact play for pain or correction, but as an extension of sensory play? A way to experience intimacy?"

Credence's throat bobs, his mouth twisting, but he holds Percival's gaze and nods. Bravery in every inch of him.

"All right. We can do that. How about fisting? What do you like about that?"

Credence looks away, so Percival nudges him with his knee. "Eyes on me."

That dark gaze darts back to him, and Credence colors again, but he swallows, says, low, "Yes, sir."

Percival grins at him, feels the thread of power between them grow taut, control settling on his shoulders like a familiar coat. "If it's easier for you to talk about this in the context of a scene, tell me your words. If you don't want to, we don't have to do it this way. We can just talk."

Credence's mouth tilts in a small smile, corners of his eyes creased. "Green, yellow, red, sir."

Lovely, lovely man.

"Good. Knees down."

Credence takes a breath, his knuckles white on the worn cloth of his jeans, but he parts his drawn-up knees, lets them fall to either side, ankles crossed. The cloth pulls tight across his erection, and Percival lets his attention linger on it, the intimacy of Credence exposing that part of him to him, even hidden.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, and feels more than hears Credence's hitched breath, the zipper suddenly too tight. The first hint of dampness darkening pale denim. "Thank you."

Credence is practically glowing at the other end of the couch, his throat red, his eyes dark. He licks his lips. "Um. What was the question, sir?"

Percival draws his gaze up Credence's lean body, from the hands fisted white-knuckled in the hem of his shirt, the shudder of his chest, the sweat in the hollow of his throat, to those eyes, liquid with pleading. He smiles, and savors the way it makes Credence shiver, lean closer, the need in him transparent, amping up even further at Percival's low drawl. "Why do you want to try fisting?"

Credence's gaze is riveted to Percival's mouth. "Intimacy, you said," and the word has never sounded so sensual as it does from those lips. "It - it sounds like the -" he halts, twists his shirt between his hands, "Having-" he groans, then says, the words rich with longing, his eyes piercing,

"' _My beloved thrust his hand through the latch-opening; my heart began to pound for him. I arose to open for my beloved, and-_ and-'"

"'- _my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, on the handles of the bolt_ ,'" Percival finishes, the words so sweet he can taste them, heady with desire, and Credence gasps, the pure need in his expression transcendent. "Intimacy. The need to yield, to be _made_ to yield, and filled with the one you allow in."

Credence closes his eyes, a ragged sound caught in his throat, and nods, leaning forward, straining, precarious. "Yes. _Yes_ , sir. Please, sir."

Percival sets his notes aside. The click of the spiral binding on the coffee table resonates in the air, and Credence jerks at the sound, eyes opening.

"You were wonderful today," Percival says, turning to face Credence fully, draping one arm across the back of the couch. The world shivers, limned gold with power, with certainty. "You were honest about what you needed, and why you needed it, and that took bravery. Thank you. Such honesty deserves a reward, sweet boy, so what would you have from me?"

Credence stills. His eyes dart from Percival's face to his hand on the couch, his throat. He swallows. "Would you-" and his voice fails him, his shoulders hunch inward.

"Would you take your shirt off," he blurts just as Percival is opening his mouth to encourage him, and Percival blinks, thrown off.

"That was silly, wasn't it," Credence says, his voice dying away as Percival sits up, reaches for the bottom of his henley, and pulls it up and over his head to let it drop on the ground behind the couch. " _Oh_."

Percival leans back against the arm of the couch, one arm at his side, the other lying along the top of the couch. Exposed, and yet powerful, in control: Credence wavers, leans forward, his eyes darting over Percival. Percival takes pains to stay fit, even in retirement; he's kept up the habit of running and lifting from his cop years, and it's all paid off in this moment.

Credence plants his hands on his knees and rises into a kneel, his gaze avid, lower lip caught between his teeth. A blush dusts the tops of his cheekbones. His breathing falls loud between them, and he swallows. His attention is indecisive, flitting across Percival's throat, the swell of his biceps, the scattered dark hair on his chest arrowing down beneath his navel-

"You can touch, if you want," Percival offers, and Credence jerks, stares at him wide-eyed, the wildness in his eyes drawing a crooked smile from Percival. "I'm only sorry that the lover's ' _body is like polished ivory decorated with lapis lazuli_ ' has been proved untrue."

Credence dares to grin back, and he uncurls from his crouch. "I don't know if you would count as a ' _young stag on the rugged hills_ ,' sir."

The wit draws a soft laugh, and Percival lets his arm drop from the couch back to offer it, palm-up, to Credence. "How cruel."

Credence sets his hand into Percival's, allows himself to be drawn to sit between Percival's leg and the edge of the couch. He tucks his legs beneath him, settles, and then his fingers twist in Percival's, a tremble beneath his skin.

"Hey," Percival says, soft, low, and turns his hand to press his fingertips against Credence's pulse. "Only what you want, remember. If you need me to put my shirt back on, if you need this to stop, you know what to say."

Credence's expression crumples, his courage suddenly frail. He seems unmoored, shivering, rudderless. "No," he says, his voice thin, "I want this, I do, it's just-" a swallow, "-I don't remember the last time I saw a man unclothed, and it was for a good reason. We - the Second Salemites -" he corrects himself, and Percival is warmed through by the conscious act of separation, "-believed in modesty. Modest dress, mainly. You had to be clothed from ankle to wrist, because of the danger of stirring lust in others, and showers were private. We were assigned times." He tilts his head, his gaze fixed somewhere on Percival's chest. "I think, maybe, I was handing out pamphlets. There was this gas station by a construction site I liked to go to."

Percival says nothing, only strokes Credence's knuckles, his wrist.

Credence's lips twitch into a tiny smile. "Ma thought, because I told her, that I went there because there were a lot of homeless folk passing through the gas station that I could convince to come to a meeting or two. And there were, but the real reason I liked to go there was-" he's grinning now, gaze lowered, reveling in his own private rebellion, "-sometimes, if it was really hot outside, the construction workers would take off their shirts while they ate lunch."

Percival laughs despite himself, and Credence startles out of his reverie. "You're so clever and so brave, I hope you know that."

A shy smile, lip caught between teeth. "Thank you, sir." He draws in a long breath. "But it was different, back then, because I was across the street in a black suit at the gas station, and they were over _there_ , of the World, and I knew I'd never get the chance to touch them for real. But now-" he gestures with his free hand, gazing at Percival with agonized frustration, "-you're here, and you're beautiful, and I don't really know what to do, and I don't want to do it wrong."

"You'd like more direction," Percival says, testing. The words, the thought, buzzes beneath his skin in a flicker of heat.

Credence glances up at Percival and nods. "Yes, sir, please."

"All right." Percival leans forward, slips his grip on Credence's hand down to loosely circle his wrist, and presses Credence's hand flat to the notch between his collarbones. "Tell me what you feel." He loosens his fingers and lets his hand drop to the couch, gaze fixed on Credence.

"You're warm," Credence whispers, his fingertips pinpoints of cold across Percival's left collarbone. He seems riveted by the contrast, his skin pale against Percival's. His palm is banded with scar tissue that rubs against Percival's skin, but Percival ignores it, too fixed on Credence's awed expression, the near-worship in his eyes. "I can feel your heartbeat," Credence says, and his smile is incredulous, the pressure of his palm centering. "It's slower than mine. And you have more hair, here." He curls his fingers into it, the light scratch of his nails a tease. "It's soft," he says, grinning.

"And what do you feel in your own body?" Percival stays relaxed with an effort, hard to do when he can feel the heat of Credence against him, see the naked desire in his eyes. But this is important; building intimacy is the first step of what they have to do together, and part of that is keeping Credence centered, mindful of his own body, his own emotions, any uptick in fear.

Credence looks away from his hand on Percival and, watching for disapproval, rests his other hand on Percival's chest. "My heart's going fast. I'm, um, hard." He swallows hard, throat bobbing. "May I touch more?"

"Of course. Move your hands down, gently." Percival watches through heavy-lidded eyes as Credence, heartbreakingly careful, skims his palms down across his pectoral muscles, the heels of his hands brushing Percival's nipples. A twist of pleasure low in his gut has Percival sigh, shift in his seat, and Credence freezes, attention returning to Percival.

"It's a good sound. Feels good when they're touched, like you said yours do." Percival tips his head forward to watch Credence's fingers spread across his chest. "You shouldn't forget that your partner has many erogenous zones besides the genitals. For some men, their nipples are one, but not for all."

Credence leans forward to watch in fascination as Percival's nipples tighten beneath his touch. "So it doesn't mean that you're..."

"Less a man?" Percival finishes, dry. "No. Some men enjoy it, including me, and some don't; where you like to be touched, what you like to have done to you, none of it makes you less or more a man."

Credence glances up, stricken, and Percival softens. He hadn't mean to come off harsh, and so lifts his hand to curl it around the nape of Credence's neck, thumb stroking where his hair is beginning to grow in. He watches, enraptured, his stomach tightening, as Credence shivers, leans back into his grip.

"Where else feels good?" Credence's voice is low, deepening, the need in it almost palpable on Percival's skin. It vibrates against his palm, in his fingertips resting in the hollows of Credence's neck. "Above the waist, I mean."

"It's different for everyone." Why did he ever retire? There is nothing as good as this, as feeling this nervous electricity spread thin between himself and a partner trusting themselves into his hands, helping them to overcome old fears and hurts. "The ears, sometimes; the neck is a big one. The mouth is a big one, but kissing takes practice."

Credence wrinkles his nose. He pets down Percival's abdomen to stroke the line of hair leading into Percival's jeans, but doesn't move further. "It doesn't look very pleasant." His dark head bows, attention fixed on the flex of Percival's stomach against his hands. "You have so much muscle," he says, awed, and presses a bit harder just to feel Percival push against him. His hands go to Percival's biceps, squeeze to feel the muscle there.

Percival hums in acknowledgment and lets his hand slide into Credence's hair. It's soft, slides easy between his fingers, a tactile pleasure he's been denied for too long. "Funny thing about kissing," he says, and smiles when Credence leaves off testing his strength to look up at him in inquiry, his eyes full dark. "How much we enjoy kissing is directly tied to how aroused we are. When you're not aroused, your disgust response is turned on full power, and so you'll probably be disgusted by the idea; get turned on, and the disgust response weakens. Hence why kissing is actually very sensual, if you're in the right mood, with the right person."

Credence's shoulders rise on a deep breath, his eyes sharp, his expression near-challenging, that strange bravery overtaking him once more. He tips his head back into Percival's hand, his long throat unmarked, beautiful in its potential.

Percival's smile sharpens, the old urge of possession, of claiming, rising thick and hot in his chest. He tangles his fingers in Credence's hair, gathers them together, gives a testing tug, and Credence goes boneless, eyelids falling half-shut. His breath shudders between them.

"Please, sir." Naked need. "Please."

Percival brings his free hand up to brush his thumb along Credence's sharp jaw, stubble rasping beneath his fingertip. Watches, greedy, the way Credence leans into the touch on a gasp.

"Please, what?"

"Please kiss me, sir," Credence breathes, and he's radiating heat, flushed across his face, his neck, his lower lip bitten red and swollen where Percival rests his thumb. His breathing trembles, and he tugs against Percival's grip on his hair as Percival rises from his position on the couch to be level with him.

"Color," Percival whispers, close now, so close he can see the faint spray of freckles dusted across Credence's nose, his cheekbones, and Credence licks his lips and responds just as softly,

"Green, sir."

Percival leans in, murmurs, "Follow my lead," and presses his lips to Credence's. The experience overwhelms him: the softness of his lips as they open into a sigh, the heat of him so close - cold shower, definitely necessary after this - rasp of stubble, the frantic thud of his pulse beneath Percival's hand-

' _His mouth is sweetness itself_ ,' he catches himself thinking, sense-memories of an old Bible crinkling beneath his fingers.

He draws back, finds Credence's eyes shut, returns to scatter kisses across the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth - Credence grins, sways forward into him, tries to copy him -

Their breathing shuts out all other sound, all other thought, but Percival reclaims himself enough to lean away, stroke his thumb down the tendon in Credence's neck to get him to open his eyes. They flick wide, dazed, smokey with unmet desire.

"Still green?"

Credence's smile is a goofy thing, so real, so human it squeezes something in Percival's chest. "Still green, sir," he reports, and leans back in.

Percival shakes his head in quiet amazement at the bravery of him, the unstinting trust he gives, and takes the offer. He twists his hand, just a bit, in Credence's hair, and Credence's mouth opens on a gasp -

He licks between the parted lips, catches Credence's bottom lip between his teeth, pulls - a thin whine, caught in Credence's throat - and lets go, easing the hurt with gentle sweeps of his lips -

Credence's hands clench on his biceps and he finds himself with a lapful of young man, all need and lanky limbs. He shivers, presses into every kiss, every touch, like he's starving for them, and he well may be.

Halfway through another kiss, Percival cracks an eye open to see the time. Fuck. It takes long minutes to ease Credence down, to quiet the need burning in him, to press him gently but firmly back across the couch until they're spread out across it again.

Credence's head rests on his chest, ear pressed above his heart, Percival's hand cupping the back of his skull, thumb stroking the thin skin above his ear. His lanky arm drapes across Percival's stomach, fingers drumming out some old hymn on his flank.

Silence. Just breath, and heartbeats, and the slow whirl of the dustmotes in sunlight.

Just this, forever, and it could be enough, and Percival is wise enough to see the hurt at the end of the road.

Still. He'll walk it, because Credence trusts him to guide him down that path snarled with thorns, and so-

So he'll walk it all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "My beloved thrust his hand through the latch-opening; my heart began to pound for him. I arose to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, on the handles of the bolt," "body is like polished ivory decorated with lapis lazuli," "young stag on the rugged hills," and "his mouth is sweetness itself" are all lines from the 'Song of Songs.' 
> 
> If you feel moved to leave kudos or a review, I'd be delighted! I try to respond to all reviews.


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